


XO

by MirithGriffin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Blackcurrant Jelly Bed, Consent Issues, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Opinion is divided as to whether this is crack, Or not, Pandas, Science Fiction, See if this reminds you of, Sentient Lava Lamps, Sex Tips from Dr. John H. Watson RAMC, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson floating in space on a bed handcuffed to one another
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-27
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-10 20:50:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 83,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/470545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirithGriffin/pseuds/MirithGriffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Benedict Cumberbatch went on <i>Top Gear</i> and said, "There's a load of fan fiction which has me and John Watson floating in space on a bed handcuffed to one another," three people wrote me within an hour to say it sounded a heck of a lot like this. Alternate universe. Almost literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Noughts and Crosses

Sherlock Holmes had been through twenty sleeping cycles – sixty Earth days – before the aliens brought him a mate.

Umber Triangle, who was responsible for his care and feeding, had told him that the mate was coming. Not that he'd believed it. In his thirty-four years on earth, he'd encountered no one of interest. Various matchmakers of his own species (his brother, his primary contact at the Met, his landlady) had tried unsuccessfully to set him up, so what was the likelihood of the job being completed by sentient columns of thick, golden soup with geometric shapes where the noodles should be?

 _Not high_ , thought Sherlock. He calculated the odds at roughly 3.6 percent.

Nevertheless, here the man was, having materialized in a heap on the floor of Sherlock's sleeping quarters as if sent down the chimney by an intergalactic Father Christmas. His short hair was blond and brown and silver all at the same time, and his blue eyes were the size of handcuffs, linked together by an upturned nose. Sherlock ran over to peer at him.

"Eurgh," said the mate, staggering to his feet. The fact that he was able to get himself vertical so soon after transit, despite being obviously hung over, indicated that he was in excellent physical condition. He had a fine torso, a case of five-o'clock shadow, and a rather dashing scar indicating a bullet wound to the left shoulder.

 _Police?_ _Criminal? No. Stance, recovery time, and haircut say military; stubble says_ ex _-military. Ex-military, spectacularly unlucky, or both._

The imprint on the man's right cheek was consistent with him having rested facedown for several hours on top of his engraved phone. Clearly, at the time of abduction, he had been unconscious. _Alcohol poisoning,_ thought Sherlock, _hence the hangover._ The lack of any signs of struggle – no purpling at the jaw, no finger marks on the neck – suggested the dose was self-administered.

Curiously, Sherlock read the backwards text emblazoned on his future partner's face. " _Harry Watson – from Clara xxx."_

He instantly recognized the brand from the dimensions of the case. _Young man's gadget. Top of the line. Finicky. Not consistent with the man's rough-and-ready appearance. No signs of regular computer use; no callouses on the undersides of the wrists. He's not technologically savvy; he's stubborn, a Luddite. He wouldn't have picked the phone out for himself. No one who knew him well would have chosen it for him. Second-hand, a cast-off. Harry: relative or friend?_

"Mggh," complained the mate. He pawed at his head, as though hoping he could get it to pick up some channel other than the one it was on.

Sherlock felt a wave of irritation sweep over him. It was unfortunate that the aliens were no longer beaming captive entities on board with their clothing and accessories intact, as these were excellent fodder for deductions. This they blamed on him. He'd been beamed aboard directly from the kitchen in Baker Street while holding a tin of ammonium nitrate and a small flask of petrol, and the resulting fireball had singed off his own eyebrows and terrified the welcome party. Ever since then, Ut had given him to understand, all abducted life forms were to be transported on board nude and devoid of belongings. He'd have to deduce whatever he could from the man's own body.

Not that he could see all of it. Although the aliens had stripped the man of his terrestrial effects, they'd coquettishly wrapped his middle in one of their own olive sleep coverings. Sherlock took this as a sign they'd begun researching human customs. He wasn't sure if the mate's wrapping was meant to designate him as a present or to protect his modesty, but whatever the situation, the wrap suited him. He looked attractive. Sherlock was glad that his eyebrows had grown back.

"Merciful fuck," announced the man, who seemed to be regaining the ability to protest in English. "What did I drink last night?"

Sherlock took his mate by the chin – more prominent than his own, it made a good handle – and sniffed him.

"Oi," sputtered the mate, and pushed him off. He was a feisty one. Cautiously, Sherlock checked the capillary patterns in the whites of his eyes. They formed a red filigree as detailed as the whorls of a fingerprint.

"Four Newcastle brown ales," observed Sherlock. "Also two pints of Guinness and a cement mixer."

"The hell?" The mate possessed a rich knowledge of profanity.

"Cement mixer," said Sherlock, annoyed at having to repeat himself. "Bailey's Irish Cream. Lime juice chaser. Produces a curdling effect in the mouth of the recipient. You don't bear the marks of someone who enjoys pain; furthermore, you don't even know the name of what you drank. Conclusion: you didn't order it for yourself. You must have been out with 'friends.'" Sherlock was careful to enunciate the quotation marks.

"How do you know that? That's ama—"

Sherlock glanced again at the man's short, sensible haircut. "No, what's amazing is that well into your thirties, a man like yourself – not intelligent, per se …"

"Hang on …"

"But with a certain amount of the uncommon attribute known as common sense – chooses to consort with weeknight drunkards given to practical jokes bordering on abuse. You submit to these kinds of rituals because you understand that they're a method of testing masculinity and loyalty to the group. There's a shared history there, or you wouldn't put up with it. You're too pugnacious for that." Sherlock scanned his mate's two-toned wrists. "Army? Yes."

"Look, you great git. I don't know who you are…" The mate's eyes, which at first had not been able to focus on anything further away than Sherlock's face, wandered over to the transparent exterior wall of their enclosure. It was displaying magnificent views of the double moonrise over Kepler-22b. The mate's lower jaw swung open on its hinges.

"Sherlock Holmes," replied the man. He considered congratulating the mate on his great luck in being paired with the world's only consulting detective, then decided against it. Although Sherlock was not well acquainted with the practical details of courtship, this seemed the kind of revelation best saved for pillow talk.

"That wasn't a request for an introduc— _SHIT_."

Sherlock looked behind him to see what his terrified future partner was goggling at. It was nothing of consequence – only their bioluminescent captor, going for a walk, or rather, a jiggle. Finding his mate preoccupied, he took his seemingly boneless hand and shook it.

"That's Umber Triangle," he replied. "Ut, for short. Try to keep up."

"Is it _alive_?" the mate wanted to know. He reached for his waist, clearly feeling for a gun. Instead, he encountered his olive sheet. To Sherlock's mind, it brought out the blue in his startled eyes.

"Obviously. It's one of the entities that control the ship. Well, not it, individually. It has very low status, as signified by the large triangle floating in the top of its soup. The higher the status, the more sides to its crowning polygon. I rather think this one is my housekeeper. That or my jailer. Why, what did you think it was?"

"I don't know. A giant homemade lava lamp?" The mate seemed torn between staring at Ut, who was undulating towards them in a gelatinous manner, and peering into his sleep covering in the vain hope that he was wearing something else under it.

Sherlock made some shapes with his fingers in Ut's direction. The creature jiggled to a halt, then flashed three olive-colored diamonds in the center of its soup. Other shapes twirled idly in the margins.

"I told it your joke," said Sherlock. "It doesn't understand it. I may not have the right words for 'lava lamp.'"

"You can _talk_ to them?" said the mate.

"A bit," said Sherlock.

"How?"

"I've been picking things up here and there." Sherlock patted his chest and looked at Ut expectantly. "Ut. Who am I?"

Ut flashed a large plum-colored cross. The cross rolled around two-dimensionally in the center of the soup. It looked like a plus sign or an X, depending on which way it was oriented.

Sherlock made a square sign for yes. He then patted his mate on the shoulder, making sure to select the one without the scar. "Good. Now him."

A silver circle appeared next to the plum-colored cross. It was slightly smaller than its companion. Being a circle, it didn't change appearance based on orientation. It was impossible to tell whether it was rolling around in the transparent plane in the center of Ut's gut or not. Sherlock had to admit that it was a fine shape, down-to-earth, suggestive of restraint and permanence.

"That's you," said Sherlock. "Ut's been telling me about you for days now, although frankly, I wasn't always paying attention. I thought it had made you up."

The mate furrowed its brow. "The hell are they implying with the color? Is it an age thing? Tell it I'm 38. Fuck's sake. It's as if they've mistaken me for Murray."

Sherlock frowned. Had another man – possibly an Army colleague, since the mate, whose accent was anything but public school, called him by surname – already staked a claim on _his_ designated partner? He made finger shapes at Ut. Ut had no answer.

"I don't know why you're silver," said Sherlock, moodily. "You're the only silver thing I've seen in their soup so far. All the other words in their vocabulary are umber, olive, or plum." And it was true; unless they were talking about the mate, all the aliens he'd seen so far were decked out in the hues of a Tuscan restaurant.

"Great," groaned the mate, pawing at his head again. "And I'm a _circle_. You said the number of lines in the polygon stand for status. The housekeeper has three lines. Even you have two lines. I have one. What does that make me?"

Sherlock beamed. His mate was capable of pattern recognition. "I'll show you." He made finger shapes in the air. "Ut," he translated. "What is his role on board?"

In the center of Ut's glowing gelatin, the circle and the cross spun closer together. Finally, the cross fit inside the circle. There was a flash of light, and small copies of the circle-cross combination began orbiting the central one.

"There," said Sherlock, satisfied.

"There what?"

Sherlock raised one of his newly restored eyebrows, then tossed his curly head in Ut's direction. This didn't inspire any new epiphanies in his companion. Sherlock sighed. "You're my mate," he said.

The mate cocked his blond-brown-silver head.

Sherlock rolled his eyes in time with the X in the center of Ut's soup. " _Not_ mate as in hanging around the pub on Thursday night, playing darts and losing one's incisors after pinching the waitress. The other kind."

The mate blinked. "No."

"Yes."

"You're not say—"

"It's staggering that I should _have_ to," interrupted Sherlock, "given that Ut has already been eloquent on the matter, but here we are. You're to be my lover. They brought you here so we could have sex."

The mate passed out. It was three Keplerian moonrises before he came to again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book cover [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/499179). Thanks for reading! And thanks also to my eagle-eyed friend **ancientreader** for catching a geometrical faux pas in an earlier draft.


	2. Mate

John opened his eyes to find himself in bed. At least, it appeared to be a bed. It was definitely not _his_ bed. First of all, John's preferred sleeping surfaces tended towards the flat and the rectangular, whereas this was round with a dip in the middle, like something dreamed up by a med student after an all-night cram session on erythrocytes. Second, the unfamiliar bed had the color and clarity of a Hartley's blackcurrant jelly. In fact, lying on it felt very much like lying on said jelly, if the person cooking it had completely disregarded the instructions about the water content. It was firm but jiggly.

The conclusive proof that the bed was not his was this: there was a man in it. There was often a man in John's bed, but this one wasn't John.

 _A bloke_ , thought John, panicking. _Except not._ While obviously male, the person in question was anything but blokish. He was a physical non sequitur: all angles, except for where he wasn't. Where he wasn't, to state it plainly, was his arse, the curve of it putting a major indentation in the jelly. The rest of him was sharp: sharp clavicles, sharp shoulders, sharp hips, all bound up in a bespoke suit and a fine plum shirt that clung to his body like wet silk. His pale features were offset by a crown of dark curls.

Despite his unusual appearance, or perhaps because of it, John would have considered him attractive. You know. If he liked men. Which he most emphatically did not.

"You're up," said the man. His voice had the warmth and silk of coffee, with just a touch of coffee grinder for insistence. He looked as though he were perfectly content to be spending the day in a botched dessert.

John groaned. "Fucking dreams," he said, and rolled over. He had to get back to his unit. Unit as in platoon. _Not_ , thought John, _as in dick_.

 _Ah._ What he saw when he closed his eyes made more sense. _White wall. Banks of the Helmand. Vegetation high. Hard to see. Machine gun fire. IED. Ground moving. Ground rippling. Ground … jiggling?_

John opened his eyes. The undulating motion under him had apparently been produced by his companion shifting around on the massive, gelatinous donut. He was edging closer.

 _Ohhhhhh, crap_.

"Stop trying to get back to the firefight in the cornfield," said the man. "I know it's where you'd rather be, but it's insulting. Also, you're already awake."

"Uh, no. I'm really not. Can you stay over there?" John was used to other men sneaking up on him, but not for the purposes of snuggling.

"Why?"

"I'm … I'm feeling seasick." It wasn't entirely accurate, but jellysick wasn't a word.

The man's claim that their shared experience represented reality made no sense. John knew perfectly well what sort of thing was likely to greet him during his waking hours, and this wasn't it. He took a moment to review.

_Spartan bedsit? Awake._

_Shabby curtains? Awake._

_Aluminum crutch? Awake._

_Lush vistas of a double-mooned planet? Asleep._

_Lush, blackcurrant-y bed looking like something King Kong would have for pudding? Asleep._

_Lush, male bedmate with lush, male arse, its reckless curves posing a sizable threat_ – not, of course, to John's heterosexuality, but _to the laws of physics_?

 _Asleep_ , decided John _. So very,_ very _asleep._

Try as John might, the cornfield full of shrapnel refused to return. When he opened his eyes, his companion had draped himself over the lip of the bed and was using his new position to stare, upside down, at John's face from about ten inches away. His eyes were pale and slanted, and they seemed to be categorizing everything about John. Possibly at the molecular level.

"Cripes," said John, scuttling backwards. The curvature of the bed sent him tumbling right back into the middle. He stilled. The last thing he wanted was for his own thrashing to send his companion's long, lean form toppling in some unforeseeable direction. As in, on top of him, pinning him bodily to the bed.

Fortunately, the man seemed intent on processing what he'd seen. He perched on the edge of their intended love nest, knees drawn up to his chest so that his legs made a triangle, with his long hands folded into a mini-triangle on top. On this, he placed the inverted triangle of his chin.

"Intergalactic travel," said the man. "Sentient electrical products. Offers of casual sex. And yet you think you're dreaming. Is this the sort of thing you dream about? What do you live on, jelly babies and vindaloo? No, I remember: ethanol. You should lay off it. Causes impotence."

"Hang on, ma—" John paused. Something told him that addressing the other man with a term that could be misconstrued as meaning "sexual partner" wouldn't help matters.

"Oh, for God's sake," snapped the man. "I hardly think I can be expected to hang on longer. I've been very patient during your flirtation with unconsciousness. Now are you going to bed me or not?"

John felt as though his lungs were trying to crawl up out of his throat. "Sorry, _what_?" he said, when he'd finished coughing one of them up.

Sherlock was in no mood to explain. "Thanks to your little holiday, we're hopelessly behind schedule. Ut's been frantic."

Memories from before he'd passed out came flooding back to John. He poked his head up out of the concavity of the bed, emerging from it like a gopher from a hole. Sure enough, there, not eight feet away, was the sentient lava lamp. It flashed a silver circle in greeting.

Any signs of perturbance being evidenced by the home furnishing were, to John's mind, subtle. Signs of his own perturbance weren't. He sprang from the jelly and plastered himself against the transparent wall, beyond which stars were twinkling, the little buggers, in the blackness of space. Changing position made good tactical sense. It also had the advantage of blocking out unwanted skyscapes of planet Kepler-22b, which had been playing mumblety-peg with John's denial.

He tried to remember the other man's name. "Sher … Sherwin? Sherwood?"

"Sherlock."

"We need to get this thing out of here, don't you think?"

"Ut's not bothering anything."

"Ut's bothering _me_. I'm not used to it, and I need to get my bearings. Can you tell it to piss off?"

"Me telling the creature responsible for not throwing us both out the airlock to piss off. Let me think about it. Mmm. No."

"Oh for Chri—" John racked his brains.

"You're charming when you try to think," said Sherlock. "Why don't you come back here and we'll discuss the situation further?" He patted the bed in invitation.

"Yeah, no, not happening. Okay." It was time to interact with the lava lamp itself. Perhaps, unlike Sherlock, it would be reasonable.

"You," said John. "Out." He remembered his manners. "Please."

"You do realize," said Sherlock, "that Ut has no idea what you're saying. Although the 'please' was a nice touch. I don't think it wants to be ordered around by a lower ..."

"Do _not_ finish that sentence," said John. The panic he'd been feeling was being replaced with a resplendent crankiness. It was the kind of crankiness that resulted in people being popped in the jaw. He pointed at Ut, made a walking gesture with two of his fingers, then pointed towards a pale yellow patch in the deep golden wall. This appeared to be the door.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "That would make perfect sense," he said, "if you were dealing with a biped. What portion of Ut's anatomy are your fingers supposed to represent?"

As if to support Sherlock's point, the geometric shapes in Ut's gut twirled in disarray. This suggested bafflement.

John took a deep breath. He made a cross with his left thumb and index finger and held it up.

"Him," he said to Ut, tossing his head in Sherlock's direction. "All right? Him."

Ut flashed an umber square in agreement.

"Okay, then," said John. He made a circle with his right thumb and index finger. "Me," he said.

Ut appeared rapt. This shouldn't have been possible for a creature that looked like a novelty lighting product, but it was. Ut held its umber square absolutely motionless in anticipation.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this_ , thought John. He cleared his throat.

"And this," he said, "is what you want, right? Me and him together." He moved the cross inside the circle. The fluid in Ut's middle immediately turned plum. The umber square began to rotate.

"It's embarrassed," said Sherlock. "Either that or turned on. But yes. It wants us to get on with it."

"Then would you give us a minute?" John asked. He looked at Ut, made an undulating motion with his hand, then looked at the pale patch, hoping it served as the enclosure's exit.

"Technically," said Sherlock, "you just told it to do something highly unsavory to the door. Never mind. It understands."

And Ut did, because it shuffled off towards the patch. When it got there, the patch turned transparent, and Ut squidged through it. The door regained its opacity in the creature's wake.

"Diplomacy," said Sherlock. "Interesting." He began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Er, no," said John. "Stop that." When Sherlock didn't stop, he strode back to the bed and placed his hand around Sherlock's wrist to still it. Sherlock looked up at him. His lower lip was plump, and there was a beauty mark – _melanocytic nevus_ , thought John determinedly – to the right of his Adam's apple.

"Look," said John. "I'm not going to shag you. I just said what I said to get your, um, friend to leave."

"Ah." Sherlock looked strangely downcast. He twiddled an errant lock of hair with a long, pale finger.

"I mean. It's nothing personal. I don't even _know_ you."

"I would think that would be an advantage," said Sherlock. "Why not give it a go now, before we've discovered each other's shortcomings?"

John had a feeling he had already discovered Sherlock's shortcomings. "Don't you think our time would be better spent figuring out how to get out of here?"

"Why? Do you have something to get back to? No, don't answer that. It's clear that you don't."

"Excuse me? What the hell do you know?"

"Everything," sighed Sherlock. "Army doctor formerly stationed somewhere near Gereshk. Bullet to the shoulder, psychosomatic limp that disappears when you're excited, invalided home, drab bedsit, low on cash, loutish friends, latent bisexual. Dull."

"First of all, I'm not bisexual. Second, bisexuality is dull?"

" _Latent_ bisexuality is dull," droned Sherlock.

"Right. And what do you have going for you, exactly? What's your job?"

Sherlock raised his chin in provocation. "Look at me and deduce it. Oh, and do yourself a favor? Don't say 'Prat.' It's tedious. Everyone guesses that. It's not an occupation."

Rising to the challenge, John looked his companion over. His eyes took in the tight suit and the purple shirt that clung to the man's torso as though it were drowning. By any standard, Sherlock was extraordinary-looking.

"Model," guessed John.

"No."

John tried again. "Escort. Sex worker. Highly paid rent boy."

"Don't repeat yourself. No."

John ran a finger down the bridge of the other man's nose. Sherlock flinched, as though completely unused to physical contact.

"Sorry," said John. It was strange that a man who seemed anxious to get into bed would shy away from touch. "Deviated septum. Cocaine addict."

"Ex-cocaine addict. There's none on board. I asked."

"What's the hand sign for cocaine? Is it …" John pictured blow jobs in alleys, but maybe that was meth. He hadn't really dabbled.

"You don't want to know. What else."

"Physically active. Lots of running around."

"Yes."

"Strong arms." John wanted to take off the suit jacket to study them further, but that might give the wrong impression. "Push ups?"

"Fire escapes."

"Ah." John wasn't sure what to make of that. _Peeping Tom? Adulterer?_

Sherlock glared. "Consultant!"

"The fire department doesn't consult..."

"I know," huffed Sherlock. "I work with the _police_."

John hesitated. "Single. That's why you're as thin as you are. Nobody feeding you up."

"Actually, I've gained weight. I've been here two earth months, more or less. Fewer fire escapes, more soup." Sherlock stared into John's eyes.

 _Aroused_ , thought John. _Pulse visible in carotid artery. Breathing elevated. Pupils dilated._ _And that's just me_.

John wondered if the aliens had dosed him with something while he was out. "These things," he said, trying to keep his tone neutral. "Why do they want us to, you know? Are they just really, really bored? Have they not invented crap telly yet?"

"They like me," said Sherlock.

John tried to follow. "They like you, so they kidnap random people to…"

"Not people, plural. One person. You. They take in entities from all over, but you're the only other human being I've seen."

It made no sense. "And they expect us to what? Keep each other company during a long flight?"

Sherlock snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, Doctor…"

"Watson. John."

"John."

"What, then?"

Sherlock got to his feet. Standing, he towered over John. By any objective standard for platonic communication as experienced by Englishmen, he was much too close.

"We're not here for companionship," he said. "They want us to breed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **AxeMeAboutAxinomancy** for impromptu beta work in this chapter and the next. Huzzah!


	3. Sherlock Receives a Reminder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for issues relating to self-harm and sexual consent. Also, really mouthy men.

"Right, I can _see_ how they might expect me to fuck you," said John, after Ut, their captor/housekeeper hybrid, had squidged out the door. "But how in seven hells do they expect us to breed?"

Sherlock didn't hear the second part of the sentence. The first part had been sufficient to send the deluxe bucket seat in his mental swing set soaring extravagantly into the abyss.

 _The mate_ , thought Sherlock. _He doesn't consider the Keplerians' plans for our physical union impossible._ _  
_

When one _eliminated_ the impossible, what remained was John, verbally acknowledging that the two of them might fit. True, he may only have been thinking about the problem from the point of view of engineering: red Lego brick snapping onto blue Lego brick, tab A sliding firmly into slot B. However, he seemed to be asserting that in such a situation, he, John, would serve as red Lego brick, and that it was his tab that would be doing the sliding.

That meant that he had to have thought about it.

If he could think about it, he could do it.

Now John was saying something about his past, but Sherlock didn't focus on that, because all that mattered was that he might be losing his virginity to an irascible and highly compelling army doctor before the week was out. It was clear that John didn't think he liked men, but that was unimportant. Sherlock didn't need to be liked.

 _He proved unwilling earlier, yes, but perhaps that state of mind's not permanent? I've seen how he looks at me. Perhaps with coaxing, or without an audience, or time to get to know me_ …

 _Er. No._ Sherlock groaned out loud. Surely the process of John getting to know him would do nothing to facilitate romance. The more John understood him personally, the less he'd want to understand him carnally. He should have treated John nicely from the start and pretended to be mute, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Then perhaps John would be rogering him with abandon in the blackcurrant bed instead of what he was doing, which was nattering on.

"It was a mess and I never want to go through anything like it again … Sherlock, are you listening to anything I'm saying?"

"No."

John sighed. "You're a cross and I'm a circle. Fine. Well, not fine, exactly, but that's where we are. How do the aliens expect to get little circle/cross combinations out of us? How do they expect us to make more humans?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I don't know, the usual way?"

John placed his hands on his hips. He was still wearing his olive sheet. It was slung around his middle like a sarong, or a long, clingy kilt with the stripes fallen off.

"What am I missing?" he demanded. "Are you a woman?"

"Of course not!"

"Right, and you don't think _I'm_ a woman."

"John, you're putting way more faith in the opacity and thickness of that sheet than the situation merits. I know perfectly well you're male."

John was incredulous. "And you think we're going to knock each other up."

"If you ever stop whingeing on about it and actually _do_ something, yes."

"What yes? There is no 'yes' here! There's only no! Look, I don't know what happened to you in transit. Maybe it addled your brain. In fact, I think it must have done, and now I'm feeling guilty about yelling at you. But you have to understand that men can't get each other pregnant."

"Ah."

"That's what you have to say? _Ah_?" John pressed his thumbs into the inner corners of his eyes, then shook his head vigorously a few times, like a dog trying to clear its ears of water. He was appalled at himself for raising his voice again, but he apparently couldn't help it.

"What do you want me to say?" snapped Sherlock. "In my line of work, it's essential to focus. Anything irrelevant takes up space. When I got here, my brain was already crammed to the rafters with things that _matter_ , and then I was presented with the opportunity to learn extraterrestrial botany – that shimmering goo in the pot by the window is a plant, by the way – as well as xenobiology, new theories of time travel, and Keplerian linguistics. Why, in those circumstances, would I insist on clogging up my neural network with trivia that I could easily relearn if the need arose?"

"But it's human reproduction! How would you not _know_ that? Unless… oh." John bit his lip. "You _are_ human, aren't you?"

"Of course I am! What else would I be?"

"Well, excuse me for asking! You with your abnormal height…"

"How," Sherlock inquired, looking down at the top of John's blond-brown-silver head, "are you in _any_ position to comment on what passes for normal height?"

"And your gangly body…"

"Yes, John, by all means. Pretend you only notice where I'm lean, when we both know you spend half your waking moments, rare as they may be, ogling my hindquar—"

"Shut up! And your pale eyes – what the hell color is that supposed to be? Green? Blue? Chrome?"

"What color are my eyes? What color is your _hair_?"

"Right. I still have grounds for suspicion. You can't tell me human beings call their children 'Sherlock.' What sort of name is that?"

"It's _my_ name, thank you. We can't all have the scintillating creativity of the people who came up with 'John.' If that's your real name. Yes, yes, it is. Unimaginative. Prosaic. What kind of parents did _you_ have? I suppose they filled your bottle with beans on toast and swaddled you in cable-knit jumpers."

"Never mind my wardrobe."

"Oh, God, no. NO."

"Sherlock, stop talking."

"You festoon _yourself_ in cable-knit jumpers. Really, John? You succumb willingly?" Sherlock was no stranger to methods of self-harm, but even to him, this seemed extreme. He shivered at the visuals crowding into his head. "Horrible things. Bulky. They hide your body, and you never get laid. Well. Almost never."

John radiated indignation. It stuck up all around him like quills on a hedgehog. "You … I … the fucking cheek! How often do _you_ get laid, exactly, with the mouth you've got on?"

"I hardly see how that's relevant!"

It took several hours for the two of them to calm down. Sherlock spent that time stalking back and forth, and John spent it glaring out the window with arms folded over the place where the front panel of his jumper should be. Eventually, Sherlock came to light, ravenlike, on the edge of the gelatinous sleep nest. _**Our**_ _gelatinous sleep nest_ , he thought gloomily _, if only John would be reasonable about it_.

There was nowhere else to sit but the floor, so eventually, John came over and sat beside him. Sherlock mentally saluted the Keplerians for their interior design. Everything seemed constructed to pull himself and John together, if only John would give in.

"The Keeblerians…" John hesitated.

"Keplerians," grumbled Sherlock. "They're not a North American biscuit firm, no matter how alien they seem."

"Right, whatever. The Keplerians. How did they decide to … you know, find you a partner?"

"That's what they do. They're an intergalactic dating service. Either that, or a zoo." Sherlock hadn't worked out the details.

"So there are other couples on board."

" _Other_?" Sherlock arched an eyebrow. If anything, his eyebrows had grown back more lushly after the incident with the ammonium nitrate, and he was glad to have someone human to use them on. So far, Ut had proven immune to their effects. "Are you saying we're a couple, doctor?"

John set some time aside to choke on his own spit. "Look," he said, once the fit had passed, "it's hard enough to communicate without you picking apart everything I say. If we're going to get out of here, we need to cooperate. Who else is on this ship?"

"Other couples, as you say. Matched pairs from many planets, I think, plus a few things that have no partners yet. We're next door to something gigantic with tentacles." It reminded Sherlock of one of his former geography tutors. He privately thought of it as Clive. "I went past quite a few of the cells when they were returning me from testing."

"Testing?" John had eyebrows too. He furrowed them.

"You know," replied Sherlock. "Respiratory functions. Heart rate. Neural map."

"Phew," said John. "I was afraid…"

"Plus they were trying to milk the spunk out of me."

"Oh, God." John's face was awash in worry and horror. "God, God. I'm so sorry. Do you want to talk about it? Are you all right?"

"I am talking about it! And of course I'm all right. It's science. I can see why they'd want to know."

John shuddered. "That's very, um, broad-minded of you. I don't think most people would see it that way."

"Not that anything …" Sherlock paused. He was going to end with "came of it," but that sounded vulgar in context. "It didn't do them any good. They were much more effective at discerning my heart rate."

"Are you saying they couldn't…"

"No, they couldn't. And I couldn't either. It's not the sort of thing I normally do."

John winced. "I don't think that's the sort of thing anyone normally does. Not on a spaceship, while under duress. I'm sorry, Sherlock."

 _His facial expressions_ , thought Sherlock. _They're astonishing. All the emotions are right there on the surface, as obvious as the umber square twirling on a plum background when Ut's giving embarrassed assent._

Sherlock didn't have a history of synesthesia, but he could practically _taste_ John's emotions. _Bitterness of anger, salt of … what, lust? Yes. He's trying to hide it, but obvious lust. Sourness. That's sorrow. Sorrow for what? For me?_ On top of everything was a sweetness that Sherlock couldn't quite place. The combination was intoxicating.

"So they stopped, eventually," said John, looking to Sherlock for reassurance. "They gave up."

Sherlock made a tent with his hands. "I wouldn't say they gave up."

"What do you mean?"

"I … I may have suggested to them that it was impossible for them to get anything out of me unless I had a mate."

"You _told_ them to bring me here?"

"Not you, specifically."

"Sherlock, that's … you can't do that! You can't tell them to abduct other people!"

"What were you doing on earth that was so important? You were bored and depressed! You spent your days limping around your flat with psychosomatic leg pain and making your bed with military corners! Do you think I can't read that on you?"

"That's not the point!"

They sat together in strained silence.

"Look. When I told them to get me a mate, I didn't know they'd _do_ it. If I hadn't found one, how were they going to find one for me? I thought I was sending them on a wild goose chase and that they'd leave me alone and let me get back to my botanical studies." Sherlock began chattering away as if paid by word per minute. "The plants here, John. Fascinating. You've no idea. In some respects, they're like the creatures: geometric shapes moving against a gelatinous background, everything squidging around, but in plants, the shapes move slowly, almost impossible to see, and … ah." Sherlock frowned. "You don't care about that."

"Nope."

Sherlock invited other people's fury. He was used to it. He was also used to their envy and disgust. But there was something about disappointment, and John's in particular, that was exceedingly unpleasant. At the moment, the acrid taste of John's anger was being intensified by, yes, that sweetness. For whatever reason, John had thought better of him, had expected more, and Sherlock hadn't delivered. It felt horrible. It was like being butterflied open with a blade rubbed down with demerara sugar.

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked. "Do you want me to ask them to send you …" Home wasn't the right word, not with John living alone in a drab bedsit. "Back? I can tell them you're not female, that it won't work."

"And let them grab some woman off the street and chuck her in here instead? No. I don't know what woman could handle you, actually. Or this." John gestured towards the window almost as an afterthought, as though the primary issue was not being six hundred light-years away from earth, but being six inches away from Sherlock.

"And you can?" It seemed unlikely.

"Hard to say, but I'm already here. Seems a shame to involve someone else now."

 _Ah. Strong moral principle._ It was one of the many things that made John what he was. Attractive to the point of annoyance.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't they, um, test me? Or rather … shit." John's face fell. "They did, didn't they? When I was out cold. Shit. Shit. _Shit_."

"What? No. Of course not."

"What do you mean, of course not?" John worried his tongue with his teeth.

"I told them not to. There was no point. We're the same. They'd already done everything on me."

"And that _worked_?"

"Yes. I bundled you into the bed and guarded you for three days. I wouldn't let them get near you except to rub you down with a food bath. Transcutaneous administration of nutrients. Extraordinary. Oh, and I let Ut hose you down a bit for cleanliness's sake, but that's all. Other than that, I paced around you in circles. They chalked it up as a courtship display and didn't press the issue."

"Oh. That was … kind. Really. Thank you."

If John's disappointment had been discomfiting, it was nothing compared to his quiet gratitude. Sherlock flapped one hand like a child dismissing a smoke ring. "I'm not _kind_ ," he insisted. "I just didn't see the point of replicating the results."

John snorted. "Right. And here I thought replicating results was a basic component of the scientific method."

 _So much for that_ , thought Sherlock. He'd discounted John's medical training. He wasn't used to being around anyone with an understanding of science, however cursory. Certainly Anderson knew nothing about it, and the Met had hired him as an expert in forensics.

It was at this moment that Ut squidged back in the door.

Mimicking the triangle at the top of Ut's soup, John made a three-pointed finger shape in greeting. "Ah," he said. "You've brought friends."

Sherlock shook his head.

"Not friends," he said, grimly. "Reinforcements."


	4. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh. Time to beef up warnings. If you're looking for fic without consent issues, I hope you'll enjoy ... er, something else.

As six Keplerian newcomers surged forward, Ut hung back. Ut was speechless. All the geometric shapes had fled from its middle. These were now twirling nervously on the perimeter of its body in an apologetic ballet.

Whereas John found their housekeeper almost cuddly, the reinforcements were not. They towered over him and even over Sherlock, who, sixty seconds ago, had been John's new benchmark for tall. While Ut got from place to place by squidging, these creatures had mastered a kind of legless gallop. They rushed into the room in a tsunami of deep, emphatic yellows: saffron, mustard, marigold. Compared with the sleek, powerful newcomers, Ut was beginning to look like a bag of reconstituted apple juice.

John couldn't tell what they were saying, but the communicative shapes in the reinforcements' middles were at least twice the size of anything John had seen on Ut. Like print in all caps, this looked like shouting. Not that John had much experience with print in all caps. It had always been beyond him to find the caps lock key.

"Right," said John, as the reinforcements formed a menacing ring around himself and Sherlock, who was behind him. It was just as well. If John had been behind, he wouldn't have been able to see anything but Sherlock's shoulder blades. "What the hell is going on?"

"Someone made a promise" was the muttered reply. "They're here to collect."

John was fond of anchoring his hands to his hips in times of trouble. It was soothing. It was more soothing on days when he was wearing a pocket holster with a gun in it, but he'd take what he could get.

"Sherlock, what exactly did you tell them we'd do?"

"Me? _I_ didn't tell them anything. You're the one who decided to inform Ut of our afternoon schedule."

John groaned, remembering his cross/circle pantomime. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but like many such ideas, it was looking like a massive cock-up now. "I only told him that to get him to leave!"

"Yes, so you said. Not the pronoun I'd use for something lacking external genitalia, but given that we're outflanked and outnumbered, let's skip the semantics, shall we? Ut left. Leaving, you'll notice, doesn't preclude the possibility of return."

 _Shit_ , thought John. He squared his shoulders.

"Look," he said. "I need you to tell me everything you can about who he's got with him and what they want."

John didn't think Sherlock's characteristic baritone – _don't think of dark caramel, Watson; chin up, steady on_ – had half an octave to spare. It did.

"You _know_ what they want."

_Ah. Yes._

What the Keplerians wanted was for the two of them to impregnate each other during a burst of torrid public sex. This John found unreasonable. It didn't matter that the audience wasn't human, and that therefore, chances of word getting back to John's grotty part of North London were diddly over squiddly. Neither did it matter that his prospective partner boasted razor-sharp wit, triumphant cheekbones, and a stunning posterior, or that these were mathematically apportioned in such a way as to make Euclid weep with joy. The idea of sleeping with Sherlock, let alone somehow magically getting him up the duff, was a big ball of “Does not compute.”

"Right. Skip that. Who's with him."

"Societal function is expressed by the crowning polygon," said Sherlock, narrowing his almond eyes. He really was gorgeous, in an offbeat way. He was an avalanche of pointy things, pins and needles and femurs and hips, all emanating from the opulent pincushion that was his arse. "Olive hexagon is the top ranking member of the group. Soldier caste. An officer."

John could handle this. "What's his status? Does he outrank me?"

"How on earth should I know?" John could actually _feel_ Sherlock looking him up and down, giving special attention to his armpits. "What are you, a lieutenant?"

John folded his arms over his chest, shielding his crevices from the eyes of the impudent. " _Captain_."

"I underestimated you," said Sherlock. John felt a surge of gratification at this. "Still, no idea. Oh, and whatever you do, don't salute. It doesn't mean what you think."

"Understood. Who are the others?"

"The plum pentagons are scientists."

 _Tests._ _Probing. Intrusiveness of all kinds_. John shook the images off. "And the umber square?"

"That? That's a member of the priest caste. I don't know what that's doing here. It's got no reas—"

"Short answer?"

"Voyeur."

While this was not good news, John was astonished by Sherlock's ability to synthesize information on the fly.

 _How does he know all this?_ asked the right hemisphere of his brain. _He's amazing_. _He's extraordinary. He's fantastic._ This was countered by a howl from the left hemisphere, which seemed to think that Sherlock was an ocean of daftness in a sharp suit.

"Are you taking the piss?" John wanted to know. "You're very clever, I can see that, but how much of this is just guesswork?" _Or worse_ , John added privately. He wondered to what degree the contents of Sherlock's mental cereal box had settled during shipping.

" _Not_ guesswork," said Sherlock, clicking the final K in a fit of pique. "Analysis. Heuristics. Synthesis."

"Seventy percent?"

"Thirty."

John flinched as something grasped his arm. He looked down to find that one of the plum pentagons had reached out a blobby appendage, which it seemed to have manufactured on the spot, and was curiously stroking his bare arm with it. The sensation was like being rubbed down with a rubber octopus on the Piccadilly Line: unexpected, and not at all pleasant.

John felt air currents eddying around him as Sherlock's arm lashed out at the intruder. Before he could slap the offending appendage away, John jerked backwards, extricating his arm and jostling Sherlock into a less aggressive position.

"Stand down," ordered John, before remembering to translate that into civilian. "For God's sake, stop trying to hit them. Tell them to give us a minute."

"You already told them to give us a minute," intoned Sherlock. The "look where that got us" on the end was silent but obvious.

"Yes, well, _you_ do it. You're the one who speaks the language. I've used up my stock of lewd gestures for the day." John hadn't, not by a long shot, but unleashing them full force was unlikely to improve the situation. "Tell them we're having, I don't know, a little domestic."

Sherlock furrowed his brow. "We _are_ having a little domestic," he said. He stepped out from behind John and made a series of gestures at Olive Hexagon. Olive Hexagon – " _Oh," for short_ , John supposed – flashed a series of large, forbidding shapes across its soldierly middle.

"All right," said Sherlock, turning to face John. The two of them huddled within a ring of agitated Keplerians. "It says we have the length of time that it takes for something with tentacles to fully digest a sort of gigantic Keplerian moonrat. Possibly five minutes."

"Look, what if we don't do this? What if we say it was all a misunderstanding?"

"I don't think that's advisable."

"Why not?"

"Keplerians don't lie, John. Look at them. They're literally transparent."

"So?"

"So," echoed Sherlock, "they frown on saying one thing and doing another."

"What do you mean, 'frown on?'"

"You're liable to get thrown out the airlock."

"You're not serious."

"I am. There was a rather excitable alien made up of magnesium and chalk in the testing lab. It told the Keplerians it needed to do an errand for its mother. Upon further investigation, the Keplerians determined that its species lacked parents."

"So they…"

"They threw it out the bay window by the communal breeding pool."

John didn't want to know what a communal breeding pool was. "They _killed_ it?"

"I don't think it was killed, no. It didn't seem to require oxygen. But it did float away."

John thought about floating away. "I'd rather we didn't."

"Agreed."

"What does Keplerian breeding look like?" Too late, John identified his own question as overly optimistic. No doubt Sherlock was identifying it as idiotic. "Never mind. There's no way you'd kno—"

"One or more participants. Each presses a side against another, or in case of masturbation, one presses a side against itself. There's undulation at the point of contact."

"Crap. I really did tell Ut to do something unsavory to the door. How do you know all this? Don't tell me. You deduced it."

"Hardly. They put on a presentation for me in the lab. They thought it would excite me." Sherlock frowned. "It didn't."

"Shit."

"Particularly the bit with the engineering crew. It looked like an explosion at a custard factory, except, well. Not so opaque."

"Uh," said John. "Good to know. What else?"

"When there are partners, Keplerian anatomy obviates the need for a single 'top' or 'bottom.' Conservation of matter. Sticking something into a partner necessarily creates an indentation in oneself, which is then filled by another Keplerian. The gelatinous wall breaks down at each point of contact, and for a time, the creatures meld. As long as connection is established, geometric shapes are exchanged. Never the crowning polygon, but the others are fair game."

"And if I refuse to do something, er, like this with you, it will be seen as…"

"Given what you told Ut earlier? An act of war, I think. Of course, if you do have sex with me, it may turn out to be an act of war anyway. I'm still learning the language, but I believe you promised we'd breed. You've already made it clear to me that's not going to happen." Sherlock looked slightly mopey at the thought.

A terrible idea occurred to John.

"How do I know you're not making things up? You could just be willfully misinterpreting everything they say to get a leg over." John's voice slipped into an imitation of his fellow captive's posh tones. "'John, there's going to be an intergalactic incident of horrendous proportions if you and I don't lie down and create new humans via simultaneous fellatio this instant.' How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," said Sherlock, with a quick glance towards Oh. Oh's middle was awash in large, shouty geometric shapes again. "Time's up."

Sherlock was right. John didn't know that he could trust him. And yet, when he checked in with his own oxytocin levels, which had been hiding under a firestorm of adrenaline, he found that he did.

Perhaps it was because Sherlock was extravagantly blunt. The man had no filter. He didn't have a transparent pane in his stomach showing everything he was thinking, but he might as well have. Also, he'd tried to protect John on at least two occasions, one of which was verifiable because it had occurred when John was awake. Either way, John had a certain amount of confidence in him. He could only hope that Sherlock felt the same, because otherwise, this was going to be incredibly awkward.

Hell. It might be incredibly awkward anyway.

"C'mere," said John, beckoning Sherlock closer.

"What?" said Sherlock, bending his head down. "We don't have to whisper. It's not as if they know what we're ..."

And then he stopped talking, because the pressure of John's mouth was interfering with the movement of his lips.

The kiss was supposed to be a quick snog for show. A good faith effort to buy time. A demonstration that John wasn't lying and that nobody needed to go out the airlock, thank you very much.

It wasn't.

It was electric.

As heat prickled up the backs of his thighs, John realized that it was the first time he'd actually touched Sherlock for reasons other than diagnosis or restraint. Yes, he'd run a finger along the bridge of Sherlock's upturned nose, and there'd been a quick jostle when Sherlock wanted to smack the Keplerian scientist for poking John with a gelatinous protuberance, but in the short time they'd known each other, they'd never so much as shaken hands. They'd skipped that stage. And now it was too late for that, because Sherlock's eyes were wide and he was making a little _Oh_ of surprise and his lips were soft and inexperienced. It felt intimate. It felt _dangerous_.

_Oh fucking hell._

John closed his eyes and pressed his tongue into Sherlock's mouth. In the split second before he'd done it, he'd imagined it might be warm and welcoming. Instead, it was warm and hesitant. At the moment, for reasons John didn't want to analyze, warm and hesitant was to warm and welcoming what hundred-year-old brandy was to zinfandel in a box.

_Christ. Has he done this before? He's not acting like he has. Must have done, though. The body on him? Yeah. Unless he's chased everyone away with his arrogance and his massive intellect. Still. Nobody makes it to the age of thirty without so much as a quick liplock, do they?_

John doubted that even the Pope had pulled it off. And yet, here was Sherlock, yielding and uncertain, drumming his fingers nervously against John's hip.

_Good. He smells so good. How does anyone spend two months on a spaceship and still smell good? It's not cologne. It's him, his body, his scent._

Sherlock smelled of the planet they'd left behind – like pine forests and sea air and the damp earth after the rain. Lost in the scent of home, John wrapped his arms around the man's neck. He pressed against him, trying to maximize contact as they kissed. Sherlock pressed back.

_Oh God. He's hard._

And he was, magnificently so, but John couldn't hold that against him, because so was he.

John opened his eyes. Sherlock's were already open. John had the feeling he'd been watching the whole time, trying to take everything in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to **An_Artificial_Aspidistra** and **AxeMeAboutAxinomancy** , who pointed out errors and thus helped me fix them.


	5. Kiss

_Oh,_ thought Sherlock, as his mate swooped in for the kill. _Oh_.

Actually, he couldn't tell if he'd thought it or said it. He hoped it was the former. Any acknowledgement of John taking him – and here Sherlock's brain got stuck on the possibilities afforded by that particular subject-verb-object combination – by surprise would be a sign of weakness.

Of course, fixating on the idea of one's roommate shagging one blind when he'd already said he wouldn't wasn't a sign of cool intellectual detachment either.

Sherlock's assessment of the situation? _Bugger._

Sherlock had expected to investigate John, thank you very much. He hadn't for one minute expected John to investigate him. He'd seen the man as a sort of biped version of the violin: something he'd been given, something of his own, a companion for him to examine and investigate and master. He told the violin to play, and it did. In its absence, he ought to be able to command John to provide him with sex and find him similarly responsive. The aliens had set the overall goal, but Sherlock would set the terms, and John, the ordinary person in the relationship, would accept them. That was his role as mate.

John, who was making Sherlock's trousers feel poorly constructed, seemed to have a different understanding of his role. Any Sherlockian expectations that John would be simply lying back and thinking of earth were now flying out the back of the spaceship on a vapor trail.

Perplexed, Sherlock looked to his data.

_Subject: Mate. Er, John. Kissing. Mmmn._

_Body temperature: 37.9_ _°C_ _. Note: Reading is extrapolated from surface temperature of lips. His lips. Which are on me. Ungh._

_Height: Short. Tells his friends he's 1.7 meters. Isn't. His lack of shoes makes him even shorter by comparison. This should not be sexually compelling. Is._

_Plans for future research: Find out if he's portable. Preferably when asleep._

_Body type: Solid. Powerful. Compact. Wriggly. Ah. Yes. Like that. Good._

_Clothing: Sheet provided by alien overlords. Cons: unimaginative. Pros: revealing._

_Scent: Tea. How does he still smell like tea after the bender he was on? Ah. Lapsang souchong. Not like other teas. Dried over a pinewood fire. Smoke particles, pine resins. Tend to bond with the keratin in human hair. Drinks a lot of it._

_Addendum: Possibly bathes in it._

_Kissing style: Guerilla attack on my mouth. Drew me in under false pretenses, then grabbed me by the cheekbones and had at it._

_Respiratory rate (his): Increased._

_Respiratory rate (mine): Verging on tachypnea. Unf._

_Heart rate (his): Elevated._

_Heart rate (mine): Catastrophic._

_Eyes (his): Closing_. _Why? Fascinating. He's shutting down his visual system to devote – mm? – more cerebral processing power to other senses. Touch, for example. Which is what he's doing to me. With his – ah – tongue. Very insistent. He's licking a path along the seam of my lips. Does he want them apart? Why does he want them apart? Mmpf. They're parting. Are they meant to do that? Focus._

Heightening one sense by shutting another one down was a brilliant tactic. Holmes used it himself. The preceding summer, he'd had to chase a news crew away from the quadruple homicide at the Holborn Viaduct Pret A Manger, simply because the garish spectacle created by their wardrobe was affecting his hearing. _Cerise jacket? Noisy. Chartreuse tie? Cacophonous_. Managing his visual environment helped him pay closer attention to the auditory one, even if all he was listening to was the voice in his head. He liked that voice. It was generally the only one in the vicinity that was right.

 _It's an observant person's trick_ , thought Sherlock. John hadn't seemed particularly observant, but that was when his mouth was over there. _How do you sup—_

Sherlock's question would have to wait. John had chosen that moment to enter him with his tongue.

It was odd, no longer being alone in his own ponderous, pondering head. He'd never had a lodger before. True, the kiss had been unexpected, but he'd heroically clung to the shreds of his coherence. That was before John had breached him. There he was, warm and human and inescapable, making a home for himself in Sherlock's mouth. Under the onslaught of sensation, all of Sherlock's mental functions shut down for ten seconds.

Here was irrefutable proof: kissing caused brain death.

Fortunately, John was determined to effect a miraculous recovery through resuscitative osculation. Or, as Sherlock thought before the bulk of his vocabulary came back online, _Oh, God, he's going to snog the hell out of me until I snap out of it_.

Sherlock knew a high-quality cross-examination when he saw one. John's tongue was grilling him, compelling his body to give up its secrets. Was that a moan? Sherlock hadn't realized he could make that sound, not without fracturing something first. John had coaxed it out of him, just as he'd coaxed his nipples into stiffening against the inside of his shirt. Other parts of Sherlock were cheekily following the example of his nipples, purely because John was kissing him. There was some kind of anatomical coup going on, and John had orchestrated it.

 _Stupid_ , thought Sherlock, once thinking was an option. _How could I have been so stupid?_

"All right?" asked John, surfacing for air.

"Yes," Sherlock lied. He was not all right. He was desperately turned on. How was John able to make him this hard without him willing it? What Sherlock was currently packing between his legs would put out a Cyclops' eye.

 _Oh_. John was hard too. That was fine, then. Sherlock put a hand behind John's neck so that he couldn't get away and kissed him. John gave a surprised _umph_ and then settled in for the duration, wrapping one arm around Sherlock's waist.

Sherlock let his eyelids droop. John had the right idea: it really did intensify touch. It was blissful. Sherlock had done something like it during concerts – not kissing, but shutting his eyes, surrendering himself to senses beyond the visual. The shimmer and glide of a Bach violin concerto? Necessary. The sight of knobby elbows in evening wear, sawing away to create that music? Unnecessary. John was sensible to make the distinction.

And yet, with his eyes shut, he couldn't see John. He opened them again. Being this close to someone – _Unngh, he's_ in _me, can't get closer than that_ – played havoc on his binocular vision. There were two of John. Sherlock was fine with that. The more of John, the merrier.

_Touch. Feel. My mouth opening to him. My body responding to him. Mouth becomes softer, groin becomes harder. How is he drawing this out of me?_

Sherlock could feel his brain race, his pulse soar. The call of one neuron to another, of blood cells singing each to each. His body had become an orchestra. When had this happened? He didn't even remember getting the sheet music. It was like being able to play Mahler's Fourth simply because someone had waved a baton at you.

"Is this how people usually do it?" Sherlock demanded. He was aware of their Keplerian audience standing around them in a ring, but only dimly. Anything that wasn't John was now mood lighting, as far as he was concerned.

John grinned. "How do you mean?"

Sherlock looked down at where John was still grasping him by the waist. "Kissing. With, er, more than just lips."

John was looking at him oddly. "Uh, yeah. It's not universal, maybe, but it's not rare either. Do you …" He licked his lips. "Do you want to go again? Best to make a good impression."

It wasn't clear who John was trying to impress, Sherlock or the Keplerians. Sherlock's vote was already in the bag. "Yes."

Sherlock inclined his head, offering John his mouth. John kissed him again. This time he put a hand in Sherlock's hair. Sherlock wouldn't have thought he wanted a hand there, but then, he hadn't realized he wanted a hand on his arse, either, and John had also seen to that. John was using Sherlock's posterior as a kind of shelf. His hand rested there peacefully, like a skull on a mantelpiece. It seemed like it was designed to fit there.

Sherlock didn't care what John said: it was highly unlikely that the average person kissed with all four limbs and their hips. That had to be a personal invention of John's. The man was grinding against him now.

"Why do you close your eyes?" It was best to be certain. "It's not …"

"Not what?" said John, sounding mildly exasperated now. Perhaps it wasn't wise of Sherlock to keep depriving him of his mouth.

"Do you not like how I look?"

John giggled. This was a new development. Did all of Her Majesty's soldiers giggle? _Doubtful_ , decided Sherlock.

"You look fine," said John. "You know. For a bloke. Might as well close my eyes. I can't see anything when you're two inches from my face."

"That was never two inches."

"Right," said John. "Get back here."

How had Sherlock so gravely underestimated the man? He knew more about Sherlock's body than Sherlock did, and he'd only made its acquaintance this week. He deserved the Nobel Prize in Kissing. Sherlock felt as though he'd taken home a German patent clerk and not realized until he had him on the sofa that the man was Einstein.

There was a sudden flurry of activity from the Keplerians. The flashing of their bellies created a sort of strobe effect.

"What's going on?" John wanted to know.

"It's Ut," said Sherlock. "He's … _it's_ dissolved in a puddle on the floor." Oh, this wasn't good. John's tongue had only been in Sherlock's mouth for four minutes, and he was already picking up the man's imprecise habits of speech. Sherlock blamed osmosis.

John let go of Sherlock. "What's wrong?" He pushed his way through a field of gelatinous bodies towards Ut. "How can we help?"

This was what Sherlock got for dating a doctor. "I don't know, put him…" _Blast it._ " _It_ in the refrigerator? It'll be fine, John."

No one could look more dubious than John. It was a function of the wrinkles in his forehead. "How's it going to be fine? We need to do something. He's sinking into the carpet."

"I've seen this before. It's overheated."

That was one way of putting it. Several weeks ago, Ut and Sherlock had been ambulating down a walkway – a squidgeway, really – overlooking part of what Sherlock was now thinking of as the Keplerian Zoo. Ut had paused to watch two Midorian fire snakes. They were shagging like weasels. Ut's middle had turned plum, and it had promptly turned into a pile of goo. Several hexagon M.P.s had come to escort Sherlock back to his room. Ut had been fine the following day, but it had never taken Sherlock back to the reptile area.

Sherlock's reverie was cut short as the head plum pentagon made a move towards John. It was the same creature that had groped John's arm before. Sherlock now recognized it as the principal investigator in charge of examining him in the lab. The one John had disapproved of for trying to milk him.

Running solely on instinct, Sherlock strode across the room and interposed himself in between John and the scientist, who was waving a blobby and hastily manufactured arm.

"What's up with him?" John asked. Good old John, forever seeing male reproductive organs where there were none to be had. "Can you translate?"

Sherlock wanted to say, "It says, 'Take Sherlock to bed.'"

He wanted to say, "It says, 'Let Sherlock touch you everywhere. Let him put his hands on your pulse points to see where the blood courses strongest. Let him determine where your skin is roughest and where it's softest. Let him investigate the scar on your shoulder and taste the backs of your knees. Let him examine your cuticles and put his hands between your thighs."

He said none of those things.

"It's congratulating you," said Sherlock. It was best to camouflage the longing that would otherwise be coming off him in waves. An eye roll might do the trick.

"Congratulating me for what?"

"For your impending fatherhood. In its professional opinion, you've knocked me up."

John laughed out loud. Sherlock thought the humor value in the situation was limited. John had been touching him in a delightful manner before, and now he wasn't.

Seeing Sherlock's frown, John sobered up. "It worked, then. They bought it?"

"Bought what?"

"They think that was sex."

"Yes." Sherlock thought the Keplerians had a point. He and John had penetrated each other. What did it matter what organs were used? Tongues, like cocks, were firm and wet. Their hips had been moving in synchronization; their bits had been pressed into each other's bellies and thighs. How was that not sex? If that was foreplay, actual sex was going to finish him off.

"So," said John, "that was enough." The words were dressed as a statement, but Sherlock recognized them as a question.

No. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. He'd been willing to let John have him; _would_ have let John have him, had it not been for the distraction.

He was still willing.

"Yes," said Sherlock, glad that John could not read what he was thinking through a pane of glass in his stomach. "For now."

* * *


	6. Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Promises: Rated M for men going at it.

"John. _John_. Wake up. We've been outed by pandas."

The man spread out on the blackcurrant jelly bed opened a single, bleary eye. With some effort, he focused it upon his sleek, brooding flatmate, who was stalking back and forth across the floor of their enclosure like a caged panther in a Spencer Hart suit.

"The hell?"

" _Pandas_ ," emphasized Sherlock, as though the path to comprehension was paved with shouting. "The Keplerians know I'm not pregnant. I've been scanned by Plum Duff."

John opened his other eye at this. Now he had stereoscopic vision with which to take in the sight of his companion pacing like a madman. _Er. No._ John mentally corrected his mistake. "Like" was for similes, not synonyms. John was fairly certain that you could take any recipe calling for grade-A madman, replace it with Sherlock, and be assured of culinary triumph.

Sherlock's lunacy was fast becoming a problem. John had always gravitated towards partners who were smart and crazy, and Sherlock was a textbook example of both. True, he wasn't a woman, but he was utterly brilliant and madder than monkeys. _Six monkeys_ , John thought. _All hopped up on mescaline and in charge of a fire hose. Oh, God. If it weren't for the lack of tits, he'd be exactly my type._

"Look," said the ship's token lunaphiliac, sounding much more reasonable than he felt. "Slow down. Start at the beginning."

"I did," snapped Sherlock. "You insisted on sleeping through my explanation. How much sleep does one man require?"

 _Sleeping? Eating? Breathing? Dull._ Maslow's hierarchy of needs meant nothing to the gangly maniac.

"If that man is me?" asked John. "Some. Can you sit down for one minute? You're making me dizzy."

Sherlock was indeed making John something, but dizzy wasn't it. His pacing was terribly distracting. For one thing, the frenetic motion set off John's orientation response, and for another, every time Sherlock pivoted away, his backside, clad in close-fitting English wool, was displayed to breathtaking effect. The fact that the man's trousers were capable of confining such bounty was nothing short of miraculous.

Sherlock gave a short bellow of frustration, then bounced up and down on the edge of the bed, sending ripples through its jelly. The resulting wave tickled John's thighs.

"Pandas! The Keplerians got hold of two of them. They're in a cell two doors down. They've been at it like rabbits."

"So?" It was unusual for Sherlock to be interested in salacious gossip.

"How are you not understanding this? One of the pandas is with child."

Still half asleep, John goggled at this development. Clearly, the situation on board the H.M.S. Keebler was more complex than he'd originally surmised.

"For God's sake," said Sherlock, clearly at the end of his rope. "It's with _panda_. Confound it, John. You know what I mean."

"Good for it," said John, relieved. "We'll have to send it a bouquet. What does any of that have to do with us?"

"You know how your recent snogfest succeeded in convincing Plum Duff that saliva was a vector for mammalian DNA exchange? That's finished. Kaput. The game is up."

"Saliva _is_ a vector for mammalian DNA exchange," John pointed out. "Just not one that leads to reproduction. And how the hell was that _my_ recent snogfest? Honestly. One man kissing. What's that, a Zen koan? Sherlock, you liked it. Maybe you didn't want to do it at first, but you got into it. I distinctly remember you trying to harvest my adenoids with your tongue."

Bits of Sherlock's face changed color. The resulting shade harmonized nicely with the plum in his shirt.

"John, _please_. Now is not the time to indulge your overactive and no doubt exclusively heterosexual libido. I need you to focus. The pandas are the only other mammals on board. The fact that they've been able to conceive without swapping saliva calls our own 'breeding program' into question."

If Sherlock's speech was meant to turn John's thoughts to matters of strategy, it was failing. How was John supposed to think when this stunning creature was blushing at something he'd said? The rational part of John's brain wondered if Sherlock could change color on purpose, like the embattled octopus in a David Attenborough program.

John's libido wrestled his rationality to the mat and sat on it.

 _Shit_. _Why does he have to push all my buttons?_ John put to one side the fact that the area Sherlock was chiefly affecting was less button than lever. _Bloke or not, I want him. I want to hold him down and fuck him. What exactly are they putting in the soup around here?_

"John. For the last time, _pay attention_."

"I am! Panda: pregnant. Us: not. You: upset. When did they notice?"

"Last night. The panda's become big and round. I haven't. It's aroused the Keplerians' suspicions."

"'Big and round?' What does that prove? All pandas are big and round. There's one body type for pandas, and that's it. Similarly, there's one body type for you, and it's…" John censored "luscious fuck toy" and went with "skinny bastard."

"Thank you, John. That's enchanting. To think that people say romance is dead."

"Sod this. They're being completely unreasonable. When did we kiss, two days ago? Tell them…" John couldn't believe he was advocating for this strategy. "Tell them it's too early for you to show. Tell them you're not very far along with, er, the pregnancy."

Sherlock's tourmaline eyes rolled like marbles on a hardwood floor. "What exactly is the point of digging us in deeper than we already are? You know how they react to being misled. I'd just as soon not go down in history as 'Airlock Holmes,' if it's all the same to you. Besides, it's too late for trickery. They've already scanned me."

John sat bolt upright. "What? When?"

"Just now, when you were conked out on the bed. You were busy chewing the edge of it in your sleep and muttering, 'This caf has gone downhill.' I chose not to interrupt."

John felt a tightness beginning in the back of his jaw. "Sherlock. I don't want anyone scanning you. I don't want anyone _touching_ you. If somebody's in here and they want to do something to you, you wake me up. Tell them it's a mate thing."

 _It_ is _a mate thing_ , John's brain helpfully supplied. John checked his brain for dissent, but for once, all parts of it were in agreement. John told his brain to shut up.

"Your territoriality is _charming_ ," said Sherlock in his burnt sugar drawl, "but it changes nothing. The Keplerians figured out the underlying principles of mammalian genetics late last night – again, using the pandas. They now have proof that successful breeding results in the mate's DNA being deposited inside the body of the recipient. They scanned me for signs of yours, and they didn't find any. Whatever saliva you deposited in my mouth had already been broken down by my enzymes."

"Then I'll deposit more," said John. _Ohhh, dear._ The comment was meant to sound pragmatic, but all it sounded was filthy.

There was a brief eye tussle culminating in ocular sex.

"It's not enough," said Sherlock. "They already watched us kiss. It didn't 'take.' They want more from us." He tossed his head back in challenge. _Was_ it a challenge? It seemed to be intended as one, but John's body was having trouble deciding whether Sherlock was engaged in a display of haughtiness or submissively baring his throat.

At this point, Plum Duff, with characteristic bad timing, galloped in the door. John recognized the lead scientist's plum pentagon and the slight frill around its gelatinous base. He was holding some kind of container in his gooey makeshift fist.

"Sperm sample," said John. "That's what he wants, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Yours or mine?"

"Obvious. I'm the pale one, the bony one, the one not getting any sleep. I'm the one it suspects of being infertile. Mine."

"Tell him he'll get it, but he needs to leave first."

"John, we've been over this. I haven't…"

John took a deep breath. "I know you haven't, but I have. And I'll help."

* * *

Once Plum Duff had squidged off, promising to return, John sprang into action.

"Lie down on the bed," he said, doing his best to sound brisk and businesslike. Sherlock raised a confrontational eyebrow, but he did as he was told, flopping onto his back in the bed's central indentation.

"How are you going to toss me off from over there?" Sherlock wanted to know. "I suppose you're telekinetic?" He peered over the edge of the gelatinous sleep nest to where John was now pacing by the long, transparent outer wall of their room. They'd swapped places. It was like the Changing of the Guard.

"Ha bloody ha," said John. "I'm not tossing you off. I'm talking you through it."

"Why talk?" asked Sherlock. "I imagine touch would have a higher likelihood of success."

 _Yeah_ , thought John. _Why?_

"Because it's coercive, that's why. It's what they want us to do, and I'm not in the habit of having sex at someone else's say-so."

"I find that difficult to believe. You've had girlfriends. Are you telling me none of them have ever initiated sex?"

"That's different," said John. "I knew them. I don't know the Keplerians, and I don't know you."

"Where did I get this scar?" Sherlock pointed at the back of his neck.

John sighed. "Fell off a pony when you were five."

It had been a busy couple of days since the kiss. The two of them had talked constantly. In John's defense, he'd been trying to distract himself from a monumental case of blue balls. The effort wasn't successful. Of course it wasn't. There was nobody for him to talk to but a brilliant, beautiful nutter with soft lips.

"Who's my arch enemy?"

"Your brother."

"What's my middle name?"

"Sherrinford."

"Excellent, John. Perhaps you could tell me the middle name of that woman you recently picked up at the Holly Bush in Hampstead, the one you proceeded to fornicate with in a shrub on the Heath. No? How about her _first_ name?"

"Stop trying to talk me into this! I don't…"

"'Like men,'" quoted Sherlock, speaking along with him. "Yes, yes. You only like one. Convenient use of the plural, John."

"Look, do you want to argue, or do you want to get through this before Plum Whosit comes back? Take off your jacket. You'll get … stuff on it if you don't."

"'Stuff,'" repeated Sherlock. "How illuminating." He removed his jacket and tossed it at John. John caught it in one hand and threw it onto the nearest lamppost-cum-coatrack, which is to say, a stick with a container of bioluminescent plants on top.

"Unbutton your shirt."

"Of course," said Sherlock. "Wouldn't want perfectly good tailoring besmirched by Stuff."

John's ability to think of a clever response was severely curtailed by the sight of Sherlock's pale skin emerging from its purple cage. His body was lightly muscled and even more lightly furred. There was a dusting of hair at sternum height, then a dark line of it extending from his navel into his trousers. Sherlock parted the shirt enough to be practical, but not enough to show off his nipples. John felt a bit sorry at that.

Unbidden, Sherlock pried off one shoe, then kicked off the other. _Must have been terrible at Simon Says_ , thought John.

"Get your trousers down. You don't have to take them all the way off."

John had meant to acclimate himself before telling Sherlock to remove his pants, but Sherlock had plans of his own. He pulled down trousers and pants at one go, easing them gingerly over his opulent arse and half-hard cock. Both waistbands came to rest around his thighs.

_Um. He's excited. Why's he excited? Is he an exhibitionist? Does he like following orders? Or is he just looking forward to getting off?_

"You must have done this before," said John, trying to keep his tone conversational.

"Masturbate or orgasm?"

John coughed. "The second one."

"Not intentionally, no. While asleep, sometimes. But not often."

"Right. Well, put your hand on yourself."

"How?"

"You know. Wrap a hand around it."

Sherlock complied.

"Ohhh," said John. Like a container of bioluminescent plants, the lightbulb above his head was turning on. "Is that how you do it?"

"I've told you, I don't do it at all. I tried it once, perhaps twice. It's never worked."

"OK. Your hand is sort of … upside-down. Try it with the thumb on top, instead of on bottom, then stroke yourself. The underside of the shaft is most sensitive, so that's where you want your fingers rubbing. You don't want all the fingers on the back and the thumb on the front. You won't get enough pressure that way."

Sherlock rearranged his grip. If John had thought he was gorgeous before, it was nothing compared to how he looked with his knob out. He was magnificent.

"Don't I need some kind of lubricant?"

"Er, no, not necessarily. You're already leaking. The pre-come will provide, ah, slickness. Now make a circle with your index finger and thumb and see if you can't work the foreskin back and forth over the head with it."

Sherlock gasped.

"Good?" asked John.

"Yes," came the unsteady reply.

"OK. Now think about …"

John had Sherlock's rapt attention.

"Er, somebody you like. Doing … something you want." John expected that Sherlock would close his eyes at this. He didn't. Lips parted, he continued to stare directly at John. The only difference was that he pumped his fist faster.

"Um. You might want to slow down."

"Why?"

"You're going at it pretty hard. You don't want to chafe. Go gently at first."

Sherlock put this advice into practice.

"Feel better?"

"Much."

"All right. Tease yourself. That way, you can ramp up the tension without making yourself sore."

"How?"

"I don't know. Maybe touch your balls a bit."

Sherlock cocked his head. "Is that how _you_ do it?" he demanded.

"Never mind how I do it! Just … keep stroking the shaft and try touching your balls with your other hand."

"Ungh."

"Having trouble? No wonder. Your legs are too close together. Spread them more so you can get your hand in there."

There was a limit to how far apart Sherlock could get his legs, given that he was currently bound up in his own trousers, but he managed to buy himself a couple of inches.

"Oh God." Sherlock's pupils were enormous, their perfect roundness now mimicked by his open mouth. John thought of the O in a London Underground sign.

"OK. Get a rhythm going. You're too erratic. Your body needs to be able to anticipate what's coming next. How does it feel?"

"Peculiar. I can't…"

"Yes, you can. Relax into it."

"It's … too much. Or not enough. There's something wrong with …"

"Nothing's wrong. You're just not used to it. Try rubbing a little harder. Let the flat of your index finger catch against the ridge every time you pull up."

"Guh. It's … I don't …" Sherlock looked vaguely panicked. His testicles were drawn up snug against his body, and he was covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

"You're almost there."

"This … I never … I can't ..."

John walked over to the bed. Concerned, he peered down at his writhing would-be lover. He was stuck in a holding pattern, desperate, unable to climax.

"Are you all right? Do you want to stop?"

"No," said Sherlock, and John realized he was answering both questions at once.

John bent to check Sherlock's feverish grip. "Here, now. Just put your hand …"

_Oh, shit._

John had only meant to guide Sherlock's hand a bit, make it exert a little more pressure. He hadn't meant to touch his cock. But he was touching it now, and it was hard and hot and thrumming against his fingers. Sherlock's eyes flew wide open.

"John. Oh, God. Unh. You're making me — _John_."

John had never seen anyone more transfigured by pleasure. It wasn't that Sherlock was experiencing orgasm: he was possessed by it, and he bucked and cried out as it rode him. Unable to control himself, he shuddered and shook and pulsed his wetness into John's hand. His ecstatic thrashing sent tremors through the jelly and knocked John into the bed. They lay there a moment, pressed up against each other, panting and flushed.

 _Beautiful_ , thought John. _His face. The way he looked when it hit him. Beautiful_.

They were both too stunned to speak.

"Damn it," said Sherlock, when he could move his lips again. "We forgot the cup."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! The charming and talented [youcantsaymylastname](http://youcantsaymylastname.tumblr.com) has made a splendiferous [illustration](http://youcantsaymylastname.tumblr.com/post/32296880625/new-story-by-mirithgriffin-xo-now-on-chapter-6) for this chapter. Behold Sherlock's dismay at being outed by pandas. Thrill to John's quiet BAMFitude when confronted with ~~Sherlock~~ alien life forms. Empathize with plum-colored Ut for being perpetually hot and bothered as it contemplates the rampant sexings on its ship. Thank you so much, sweetie. I love it.


	7. In Which John and Sherlock Go for a Soak

"Um," said John, with what Sherlock had come to think of as his characteristic eloquence. He was clearly used to letting his jumpers speak for him.

"Quite," said Sherlock. "Um" pretty much summed it up.

The two of them had just been removed from their enclosure and marched down to a new location by two stone-faced hexagon MPs. Sherlock was not sure how humans generally celebrated one partner bringing another to orgasm for the first time, but he was fairly certain this wasn't it.

"So," said John, conversationally. "Communal breeding pool?"

"Cleansing pool, I should think."

The vista laid out before them was something out of Hieronymous Bosch, if Bosch had skipped hell and gone straight for orgies and post-orgiastic tidying. Creatures of every description were immersed, either partially or completely, in what appeared to be a dark yellow broth. The broth was thick with mysterious, golden flakes that shimmered like small, dense pieces of mica.

John somehow added new furrows to a forehead which, by any reasonable standard, was impossibly furrowed to begin with. He stared at the denizens of the pool. Almost all of them seemed dazed and out of it. The branches of underwater trees undulated limply in currents created by the movements of other life forms. Exhausted bicycles lay tangled in a knot. Spent pieces of kelp drifted through the slow-moving auras of Tesla coils, who lackadaisically extended purple tendrils to each other.

"Are they sick?" John asked, already performing triage in his head.

Honestly. It was as if the man thought he was still on payroll of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Sherlock gave a sigh of protest.

"Hardly." Really, this should have been John's department.

"What then? Oh. They're …" John started to laugh. "They're knackered. That's it, isn't it? They're completely shagged out."

Sherlock was still not used to anyone saying "shag" to him. He was much more familiar with "piss off."

They watched as two pandas – possibly their neighbors, although with pandas, it was hard to tell – waddled into the pool, attended by a Keplerian crowned with an olive triangle. The pandas were so relaxed and spherical they practically rolled down the ramp. A cloud of mica rushed up to them, obscuring the parts of them that were ensconced in broth.

"So. That's what passes for a bath around here?"

"When all parties are conscious? Apparently." The improvised scrubbing Ut had given John some days ago had been another matter.

"Hum," said John. "No time like the present." He made to take off his sheet, then stopped. "What's 'thank you' in Keplerian?"

Sherlock looked at John as though he, like several of the pool's visitors, had horns erupting from the top of his head.

"Why on earth" – which was precisely where they weren't, but exposure to John had boosted Sherlock's use of colloquialisms – "would you want to know that?"

John gave a quick nod to the hexagon MPs who were standing sentinel over them.

"They brought us here so we could get clean. I could use a wash. We ought to say it."

"But there's no reason to say it!" The events unfolding after Sherlock's first orgasm with a partner were a bit of a sore spot. Plum Duff had burst in on the newly intimate couple while Sherlock was still trying to regain feeling in his toes, so there had been no time for any cuddling that John might have wanted to perpetrate upon his person. Sherlock didn't know if John had wanted to supply any cuddling, but he strongly felt that the opportunity should have been provided. Despite John's vigorous protests, aftercare, such as it was, consisted of the Keplerian scientist scooping up Sherlock's genetic material in the forgotten cup and squidging off with it. Soon after, the MPs had shown up.

John set his jaw. "Are you going to teach me to say it correctly, or are you going to let me improvise? Because God knows what I'll say if I do."

"Blackmail? That's beneath you, John."

"Says the bloke who told the Keplerians to bring me six hundred light-years from home in order to wank him off."

John had a point.

"Fine. Try a hexagon to start. You want to address them by rank."

"Give me two fingers."

Sherlock scanned John for signs of lunacy. "Is there any reason you want that particular salute?"

"I can't make a hexagon outline with just my hands. Here, give." John picked up Sherlock's hand and made widely-spaced horns with it. Then he stepped back and admired his work.

"Nice." John giggled. "You look like a roadie for Metallica." Sherlock would have interrogated him as to the meaning of this were he not absorbed by the sight of John making a corresponding pair of horns with his own dominant hand. This he perched upside down on top of Sherlock's outstretched index and pinkie fingers. The resulting shape was a passable hexagon.

One of the MPs jiggled companionably in John's direction. It addressed him with a silver circle in the center of its gelatinous midriff, then placed Sherlock's plum cross next to it as an afterthought. The other MP gave no sign. Clearly, it was that MP's day to be Bad Cop.

"OK, what's next?" said John.

"Circles."

"How many?"

"Five. Preferably all in a row. It means something like 'grateful.' The 'I am' is, of course, implicit."

"How the hell are we going to do five circles simultaneously?" John looked down at Sherlock's toes, apparently trying to judge the degree to which they were prehensile.

"This was your idea, John. You work it out."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Sherlock knew he would regret them.

"Excuse us a moment," John announced to the MPs, neither of which had the foggiest idea what he was going on about. He turned to Sherlock. "Right, do this." He picked up one of Sherlock's hands and made a circle with the thumb and forefinger. "Hold that up perpendicular to your ear."

"This is ridiculous," said Sherlock.

"It doesn't hurt to be courteous. Where were you raised, a barn?" John moved Sherlock's hand into position himself.

"Eton."

"If tuition's meant to include basic etiquette, see if you can get your money back." John quickly fashioned Sherlock's other hand into a circle and placed it next to Sherlock's other ear. Now Sherlock was making what had to be the intergalactic symbol for Dumbo the Elephant.

Sherlock was not amused. "I cannot _wait_ to see what you do to make me forgive you for this."

John chuckled darkly. The sound travelled the length of Sherlock's spine. "I'll bet."

John scurried behind Sherlock and made two circles with his own hands, which he placed next to the circles Sherlock was already making. There were now four circles, two on each side of Sherlock's disgruntled head.

"Now what?"

"Open your mouth."

"You've _got_ to be joking."

"Nope. Do that 'O' thing you do with your lips."

Well. This was a turn up.

Sherlock shifted his voice to its "Lava wouldn't melt in my mouth" gear. It was a sound fit to wobble the knees of royalty. He'd practiced it on Mycroft.

"When, exactly, have you seen me do an 'O' thing with my lips?"

John was not royalty. He was utterly unfazed.

"When you made that deduction about Ut. The one about how he fancies the pants off Oh, and the sexual frustration is doing his head in. Plus you had some kind of idea for what to do with bits of Ut left in the carpet from when he passed out. You made your mouth into a perfect circle."

"Ah."

Sherlock didn't bother to point out that the object of Ut's affections didn't wear pants. He was just relieved that John hadn't seen this particular face under other circumstances.

"Plus, when…"

_Damn it._

"John, shut up."

"Not unless you open your mouth. Or do two circles, a flat line, and two more circles mean something especially brilliant?"

"They don't."

"All right then."

Mentally kicking himself and quite possibly John, Sherlock opened his mouth.

The more affable of the two MPs goggled, where goggling meant freezing all his twirling shapes for a moment. Then it flashed an umber square in the middle of its gut. The square rotated for emphasis.

"It says 'you're welcome,'" said Sherlock, lowering his hands. "Actually, it says, 'yes,' but idiomatically, it's the same thing. It's acknowledging your gratitude."

"Our gratitude," corrected John, who was still behind him. "Three-fifths of the circles were yours."

There was a loud splash. Before Sherlock had even had a chance to look, John had doffed his sheet and slipped seal-like into the pool.

Sherlock rushed over to the side of the pool to peer at his mate, but it was too late. Ersatz mica chunks were glittering around him, obscuring everything.

John faced Sherlock with a grin. "Looking for something?" The pool's liquid came up to his armpits. His scar shone glossily in the light.

"Why, are you?" was Sherlock's schoolboy retort. John was definitely looking him over. Sherlock considered stripping off, but decided his clothes could use a bit of a wash. He had hastily fastened them again after the MPs had arrived, and they absolutely reeked of John-induced pleasure. Already barefoot, he hopped into the pool.

He was immediately inundated with shining, crystalline flakes. Whatever they were, they were excellent at removing grime. Sherlock let them work on his clothes a bit, then set to work taking them off. He lay his shirt on the side of the pool, then his trousers, then his pants. John pretended not to stare.

At this point, a good bath – a proper bath, with water – would have revealed a great deal. Unfortunately, the pool's liquid, clingy and golden like vegetable oil, was thick with shimmering, opaque bits. These obscured other bits that would have been of great scientific interest. Bits belonging to Sherlock's short, attractive flatmate, whom Sherlock had yet to get off.

Even if he and John couldn't see each other due to the damnably opaque cleansing particles, it was the first time they'd been naked together.

"Um," said Sherlock, borrowing a line from John. It was all he could do to keep from bellowing with frustration at his own inexperience. It had never seemed like a problem before. In fact, it had seemed like a strength.

"I could," he continued. "If you wanted. I could do. What you did. To me."

"I don't know if I … no, no, don't look like that. It's just … it's a public place. And what exactly are they planning to do with our DNA? I mean, if you did toss me off – and I'm not saying we're about to do that – would they sweep up the leavings and make clones out of them? You might be all right with that, but I'm really not. Also …"

Sherlock didn't feel like hearing one more time about how little John liked men. He picked his shirt up off the side of the pool and held it out to his mate. "Notice anything?"

John actually sniffed it. And he said _Sherlock_ was the one with no sense of personal boundaries.

"It's clean. I mean, it's a bit damp, but it's clean."

"Precisely. I assume I don't have to remind you what it was stained with."

"Er, no. No, you don't." Sherlock had ejaculated with more force than either of them had been expecting. Although the sides of the shirt had been parted at the time, it had borne some of the onslaught.

"Well, the mica _ate_ it. Look around. This isn't a harvesting facility. It's a sort of post-coital launderette. That's why the pool attendants aren't scientists. Look. No crowning pentagons. Everyone's got either a crowning hexagon, indicating 'soldier,' or a crowning triangle, indicating 'housekeeper' or 'jailer' or whatever Ut is. This place is staffed with Keplerians like Ut."

John's face relaxed at the mention of Ut. He liked the creature. In fact, John liked just about everybody. This was not altogether flattering to Sherlock.

"So you're saying the pool isn't a research lab. It's … comfortable. Cozy."

Sherlock marveled. Everything John said was made of wool and tea. Either that or bullets.

"In a manner of speaking. So if you wanted …"

John's upper lip twitched. "It's still a public place."

In the corner, a panda was thoughtfully chewing on its mate's ear. It occurred to Sherlock that he might one day find it acceptable to be chewed in this manner. By John. Not by pandas.

"No one can see you," said Sherlock. "I can't see you, and I'm right in front of you."

While the non-Newtonian fluid and its perfidious sparkly bits had the shorter man cloaked to the armpits, Sherlock's tall, angular body was on display to the bottom of the sixth rib. This would have seemed like a vast disadvantage but for the fact that John kept furtively glancing at Sherlock's nipples, erect in the cool air. At least, Sherlock assumed that this blatant ogling was John's version of furtiveness.

"Er. Yeah, then. If you don't mind."

Sherlock didn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First off, I want to thank the resplendent **youcantsaymylastname** for making a ground-breaking [photo manip](http://youcantsaymylastname.tumblr.com/post/32296880625/new-story-by-mirithgriffin-xo-now-on-chapter-6) for chapter six. Never before have pandas and a lava lamp appeared in the same picture. Five circles, can't.
> 
> Second, I want to thank tumblr queen and all around stellar human being **afrogeekgoddess** for making a [podfic](http://www.audiofic.jinjurly.com/heat-wave) for "Heat Wave." I'm delighted with your work and your friendship, sweetie. Five circles to you too.
> 
> Third, I want to apologize for the slowness of this update. According to the physician's assistant, I have either a sprained wrist or De Quervain's tenosynovitis. I vote for the latter because it sounds pretty. Either way, I'm supposed to type less. Writing sex scenes increases blood flow and reduces inflammation, so expect one next chapter.


	8. Wrecked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for men going at it. Also, references to drugs and guys playing a bit rough. Although I doubt John is actually playing.

It is a little-known fact that some people look good naked, dripping wet, and with an arm pinned behind their back.

Sherlock Holmes was not one of those people.

Forced up against the side of the pool, his chest pressed to the wall, he looked, and well, felt, absolutely devastating. Possibly even better than usual, what with the heaving and the gasping and the application of an evasive maneuver indistinguishable from shimmying.

These distractions were not a strategic advantage for John. Unfortunately for Sherlock, the army doctor's strategic advantages were already numerous.

"You … said … you _wanted …_ " Sherlock spat out, glaring over his bare shoulder at his short, bristling roommate, whose left arm was slung casually against his throat.

" _That_? Not that specifically, no," said the bristly one. "Let's go over some ground rules, shall we?"

Sherlock tended to respond to John's requests with either "Boring" or "Let's." He croaked out the latter. John correctly diagnosed this as not a display of enthusiasm, but rather the upshot of having exactly one syllable's worth of breath at his disposal. He let go, and his stubborn captive slumped forward, forehead knocking against the deck with a muffled thump.

"First of all," said John, "when I invite you to toss me off, I'm expecting something a little more low-key. It would help if you cut back on that walk you do. That stalking thing."

"Why?" demanded Sherlock, his voice somewhat stifled by his face-down posture. "Not attractive?"

"Never mind if it's attractive!" It was, in fact, ridiculously hot, but very predatory and not well suited to a first date. Not when the other participant's life menu had included seven courses of taxpayer-funded combat training and a dollop of post-traumatic stress disorder for pudding.

John tried not to dwell on how his life had come to such a pass that a quick grope in an alien cleansing pool now constituted a date. _Was_ it a date? Really, it was just his first attempt at doing something consensual with Sherlock, rather than coerced. Unless you counted the fact that they were probably both on mind-altering Keplerian sex drugs, in which case, who knew.

"When you bear down on me like that," John pointed out, "it gets my adrenaline going, and my fight response kicks in." Captain Watson had long ago given up on pretending that there was any flight component to his fight-or-flight repertoire.

"And? What's wrong with that?"

"I might hurt you." This was an attempt to spare a civilian's feelings. The operative word was "will."

"Again, what's … ow!"

"I'm just saying," said John, evenly, "that I want to go slowly at first. This brings me to my next point. When I ask you to stop stalking me – "

Here, John gave an involuntary shiver of arousal at the sense memory of Sherlock advancing on him, jaw set, gaze determined. It's one thing to agree to a quick hand job, but another to look into another man's eyes as he looms over you and register that he's six inches taller, three times crazier, and hellbent on wrecking you with sensual pleasure. This is especially overwhelming when you know that he has almost no practical knowledge of how to accomplish this. The recollection made John's stomach do flip-flops for at least two different reasons. Only one of them was fear.

"Are you going to finish that sentence?"

"When I ask you to stop stalking me," John continued, "I don't mean for you to dive under the water, swim up to me, pick me up, twirl me around, and try to grab me by the dick. Build up, Sherlock. We went over it. Do you remember anything about build up? Teasing?"

"I remember teasing perfectly well. 'Sherlock, stroke your testicles. Sherlock, get your legs further apart.'"

"Good. Yes, that."

"What I mostly remember is it didn't _work_."

 _Oh. Shit._ John reminded himself never to fuck an empiricist. "You what?"

"It didn't work," insisted Sherlock. He preferred not to repeat himself, but would sometimes make that concession if he felt John were being especially thick. "What worked was that _you put your hand on me_."

 _Of course._ That's what John had done, and it had resulted in a shuddering climax for the person he was tutoring. Naturally, Sherlock thought this kind of abruptness worked on everybody.

John got lost for a moment in how it had been to touch Sherlock – how warm and slick and solid he felt against John's palm. The curve of him. The way his eyelids crinkled when he came. The way he bellowed his pleasure, as he bellowed everything else.

But most of all, John thought about the way Sherlock had cried out his name. In his mouth, it sounded like "Eureka." It sounded like he was announcing a scientific breakthrough. In fact, it was entirely possible that the discovery that other people had first names _was_ a scientific breakthrough, as far as Sherlock was concerned. Did he even _know_ anyone else's given name? John wouldn't be surprised if he'd deleted them all. A pity, because that voice …

_Er._

John backed up. It wouldn't do for Sherlock to feel John's erection poking him smack in the arse in the middle of a talk on appropriate behavior.

"Ah. So you were …"

"Trying to return the favor, yes," said Sherlock, raising his head off the deck. He looked like a man well aware of almost having been skewered, mid-conversation, by an inexorable hard-on. "And I nearly got my shoulder dislocated for my trouble."

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I suppose you did offer to do to me what …" John let the thought trail off. "Just give a bloke some warning, will you? If we're going to do this, we need to start taking cues from each other. Check in with me, and if I want to try ... something on you, I'll do the same."

"Try _what_?" Sherlock wheeled around on his heels to fix John with an interrogative stare. It was a pity the aliens hadn't transported any outerwear for him. A greatcoat would have flapped dashingly about his submerged ankles just now. "What do you want to try?"

 _Oh God._ A list of things John didn't want to try would have been shorter. Visions of sexual acts to be performed on top of, with, and at the mercy of one's brilliant, deranged roommate danced in his head like so many lithe, long-limbed sugarplums. He imagined licking his way down Sherlock's body, scratching him lightly with his nails. He pictured treating himself to Sherlock's mouth, his throat, his belly. His moans, his desire, his cock. The whole, long lushness of him. He thought of bending Sherlock, hard and wet and wanting, over the jubilantly springy blackcurrant bed. He thought about …

Sherlock regarded his roommate first with intensity, then with consternation, and finally with wry fascination. John felt as though the warp and weft of his own neurons were laid out in a carpet of perversion for the man to see.

"John. Allow me to congratulate you. Your brain, while not, for the most part, remarkable, has the advantage of being utterly _filthy_." Sherlock said the last word with the purring relish usually reserved for "toxic," "radioactive," or "literally on fire."

John coughed. "Yeah. Well. Getting back to …" He couldn't say "the subject at hand" without it sounding like a line from "Are You Being Served." Not that Sherlock would get the reference.

"The topic," he concluded. "We should have a safeword."

The look on Sherlock's face said, "I'll thank you not to speak gibberish." For a look with "thank you" in it, it was not a particularly thankful look.

"Right." John always tried to keep a partner's idiosyncrasies in mind _("Partner"? Is that what he is to me? Yes. No. Maybe_ ), but Sherlock presented special challenges. A man who wasn't aware that sodomy could not cause pregnancy was unlikely to have mastered the intricacies of sexual etiquette. Not that he'd mastered the etiquette of anything else. "It's a word that means 'stop.'"

Sherlock looked incredulous. "Such as, for example, 'stop'?"

"Er, yeah, but …" This speech had sounded so much more sensible when John had been on the receiving end of it on that memorable New Year's Eve in the loo at the Barrel and Biscuit. _The women's loo_ , he mentally emphasized, in case Sherlock was listening in.

"John, it can hardly have escaped even your notice that there's _already_ a word for stop. And that word is …"

"OK, but I say 'stop' and you interpret that as the go-ahead for something even more over the top. If I'm asking you not to slink towards me, it's probably not time to grab a handful."

Sherlock considered this. There was a long pause.

"All right."

John blinked. "All right?"

"Yes. All right. Noted. I can _learn_ , John. I'm not an imbecile. Show me what you want."

 _Good Lord._ John felt as though he'd been handed a blank check. He took a deep breath. He put his hands on Sherlock's waist, then positioned the two of them an arm's length apart. The fact that the unit of measurement was based on John's arm, rather than Sherlock's, made them closer than they would otherwise be.

"Maybe you can start by, I don't know, touching me a bit."

John was about to provide information on where Sherlock could touch him – waist, arm, right shoulder – when Sherlock made a sudden movement. Before John could issue a word of caution, the man reached out and touched …

His face. His plain, he thought, and rather weathered face.

Perhaps wondering where the sweeping zygomatic arches were, Sherlock ran an inquisitive index finger over John's cheek. He gave similar attention to John's crow's feet. Next on the list was John's forehead. The long fingers were firm, careful, questioning.

John closed his eyes and let Sherlock memorize where his wrinkles were. In the past, John's partners had avoided them. No one wanted to call attention to the effects of time on a lover's body, no matter how fit and admirably preserved. Virtually no one, anyway.

Sherlock, however, was in his glory. He traced each fine line exactly once, enumerating them as an entomologist might the veins on a Venezuelan glasswing. His touch held precision and curiosity. These were as close as he got to reverence.

At the end of this ritual, John had no doubt that Sherlock would now be able to identify him from a chalk outline of his wrinkles alone, just as he might identify a fingerprint by its whorls or a corpse from its dental records. It occurred to John that being the subject of someone's pre-mortem investigation should have been disturbing. Somehow, with Sherlock, the gesture was sweetly intimate.

"May I back you up against the edge of the pool?"

John had been submerged in a state of tactilely produced hypnosis, but this snapped him out of it. "Why?"

"Because you were concerned about being seen. I feel … protective of you. Is that all right?"

John breathed out. "It's fine." He let Sherlock guide him backwards until his back encountered the solidity of the wall.

Ah. This was good. Whatever else was going on in the pool, Sherlock was eclipsing it. He was well suited to the task. Even by masculine standards, there was a lot of Sherlock to contend with, most of it laid out along the vertical axis.

And yet, for a man with so much _there_ there, there was still something vulnerable about him. John felt a bit guilty. It was clear who had the power in their burgeoning relationship, and it wasn't Sherlock.

"I want this," said Sherlock, having read the fine print on John's forehead. "You don't have to be afraid I don't."

"You haven't done this before."

"The thought has occurred."

"We could be jacked up on who knows what."

"I've spent most of my adult life 'jacked up on who knows what.' I'm sober, John. Trust an addict to know. I haven't been this sober since I was sixteen. I know you cherish the notion that we're both delirious on libido enhancers, but I think it's safe to say that, much like your limp – where has that gone, by the way? – your insistence that you're wildly inebriated is part of your own psychological defense sys—"

"Right," said John. There was no need for him to be laid any more bare than he already was. "So how do you …"

"Honestly, John. I don't have to know _how_ to bring you to climax in order to know that I want it. Now." Sherlock held out his wrist. "A practical demonstration. Show me."

John took the offered hand, squeezed it a moment, then pressed it against his solar plexus.

"Slowly," he said.

"I know."

John guided the flat of Sherlock's palm down his chest to his stomach.

"If you decide that it's …"

Sherlock let out a puff of frustrated air. "John, stop thinking. Just stop."

John giggled. The giggles became a guffaw.

"Oh God," he said, wiping his eyes on the back of his free hand. "First time I've heard you say _that_."

Sherlock grinned. It was a rare, honest, lopsided grin, and John felt blessed to have experienced it firsthand.

John guided Sherlock's palm down below the surface of the water and through the cloud of golden mica that had been protecting his modesty. Bidding said modesty farewell, he placed Sherlock's hand squarely on his balls.

"Ungh," said Sherlock, as if all his pleasure centers were located directly in his fingertips. If John thought he was going to get in the first moan, he was mistaken.

"So. Probably the best way to show you is by …" John extended a hand towards Sherlock's middle, then looked at him to check if it was all right.

"If you want," said Sherlock. There was that vaguely panicked look again.

"What?"

He swallowed, and John was treated to the sight of his Adam's apple dipping and rising in his long, refined throat.

"If you touch me, I'll have an orgasm. _Another_ orgasm. In addition to the one I just had." Nervousness erased Sherlock's ban on redundance.

"I'm already touching you," said John, looking down at the mica cloud concealing Sherlock's hand, which was still somewhere extraordinarily intimate.

"That's me touching _you_. It's different."

Just John's luck: Sherlock had no apparent knowledge of refractory periods.

"Sherlock, I don't think you're going to come immediately. You just got off, and you're in your thirties. You'll probably need a bit of a calm-down period before anything major happens again."

"All right." Sherlock placed John's free hand on himself. It didn't take but five seconds for his eyes to start rolling back in his head. "John. Oh, God. _John_."

Before the man could reach an apparently undesired climax, John removed his hand. "Um. I see what you mean."

John knew that this type of response – to wit, Sherlock being ready to go off like a SIG Sauer whenever John laid a hand on him – was widely considered to be a turn-off. He couldn't for the life of him think why. Who gave a damn about endurance? Sherlock would perhaps eventually work himself up to greater stamina, and if not, who cared. Not John. Not when the man in front of him was a beautiful, quivering, undefended mess.

"Right," said John. "Let's just work on me for a moment."

"Let's."

Ah. Here was the enthusiasm that had been absent from Sherlock's earlier, coerced acquiescence.

John molded Sherlock's fingers into a ring around the base of John's erection, then slowly moved it upwards. The ascension felt like six kinds of heaven, each slightly more perverse than the last.

"It feels good," said John. "You're not hurting me. You can relax."

"I'm trying to – oh. _Oh_." Sherlock had reached the glans in its velvet straightjacket.

"Unh. Um. That's … good." John knew there were other adjectives, but fuck if he could remember them. "Yeah. Drag your thumb …"

Sherlock already had ideas for where to drag his thumb. Like many of his ideas, these were fantastic.

"The skin," observed Sherlock, stroking it for emphasis. "It's not retracting."

John could feel himself blush. "Sometimes it gets a bit stuck."

Sherlock gave a short nod, as though this confirmed something he'd suspected. "I can see why. The delta between the girth of the head and the width of the shaft …"

 _Oh, God_ , thought John. _He's not put off by it. He_ likes _it._ _The daft bastard likes it._ This was starting to look like the defining principle of their association. Things that should have put one or both of them off seemed magnificent in context.

"May I?" asked Sherlock with uncharacteristic delicacy.

"Uh, yeah. It's good you asked. Why not. Just …"

Sherlock gently eased the skin over the fat, sensitive glans, then eased it back down again, rubbing up against some of John's favorite millimeters of flesh in the process. John gave a little moan of ecstasy. Sherlock frowned in concentration. This was not an especially erotic look unless you had a theory as to what it meant, and John did. Having confirmed that his mate had an oversized knob, Sherlock was calculating what it would feel like to be gloriously, laboriously belabored by it.

The genius wanted feedback on his nascent hand job technique. "Do you like it?"

"Pervert. You know I do. You just want to hear me say it." John's balls had been aching for days with the strain of not emptying themselves into the gorgeous lunatic, but the ache was starting to convert itself into pleasure.

"Indulge me."

"I … _unh_. I fucking love it."

"May I use both hands?"

"Yeah."

John rather liked Sherlock putting the dirty things he wanted to do to John in question form. Even if his intonation was imperious. No, _especially_ if his intonation was imperious. John didn't want to think about what this meant about his own mental wiring.

Sherlock wrapped one hand around John's balls and stroked his length with the other. John, who had taught him this, mentally high-fived himself for his pedagogical skills.

"May I touch the slit?"

"Yeah. Mmm. Oh. _Fuck_."

Sherlock made a rumbling sound in his throat. "One thing at a time. May I chew your ear?"

"What?"

"Your ear."

God only knew where Sherlock had picked the ear thing up. Actually, _did_ God know? He was omniscient, John's Anglican upbringing had been fairly clear on that, but he was also omnipotent, and there were things about Sherlock that any all-powerful being would be well advised to delete.

"I don't think … it's not really …" Sherlock dragged his thumb from John's frenulum to his slit and back a few times, and suddenly, all of his ideas sounded brilliant again. "Ungh. All right. Go ahead. What the he—"

Without taking his hands off John's testicles and hardness, Sherlock bent his mouth to John's ear and nibbled.

"Sherlock. Shit." The nibbling thing was better than expected. "Keep doing tha—"

Sherlock obliged for a while. Then he took John's ear lobe between his teeth, held it just long enough to make the capillaries sing, and let go. John trembled. For about the fortieth time that day, he thought about what it would be like to have sex with his roommate.

John was fairly sure he could extrapolate how Sherlock would fuck from the way he walked across a room. He considered Sherlock's sinuous grace, his acrobatic body, the majesty of his hips. It had to be said that the man moved beautifully. His bull-in-a-china shop demeanor was purely a function of his personality; there was a dancer's elegance behind it. Whether in control or out of it, he was a force to be reckoned with. While not immune to the learning curve, Sherlock – terrifying, gorgeous, unwavering by default – promised to be a Vesuvius of sex. John let out a groan. As the stand-in for the hapless villagers, he was in big trouble.

Of course, not only did Sherlock identify, out loud, what John was thinking about, but he airily instructed him to continue.

"It's fine. Go ahead."

"Sherlock."

The sultry voice was low and insinuating and very close to John's ear. "I know you want to have sex with me. How badly do you want to push me down on the deck right now? You could. I'd let you. I don't care who's watching."

"Fucking hell. Sher—"

"I know you like the sounds I make. How do you imagine I'll sound the first time you fuck me?"

"Oh God."

Still rubbing John's cock, Sherlock gave a nod of expectations met. "That ought to set you off. Between your aural fixation and your virgin kink, I'm not sure how you'll stand it."

John was speechless. Encouraged by Sherlock's dirty mouth and his probing fingers, the pleasure that had rooted itself in his balls was beginning to send fresh green shoots upward. They curled and looped inside him like the tendrils of pea plants.

Sherlock tried an exploratory moan to see what John thought of it. The moan was breathy and surprised and desperate.

John wasn't sure how he was standing it _now_. "Sherlock. Sherlock, please."

"I want to finish you off. Will you permit that?"

"Yes. God, yes."

"You're beautiful," said Sherlock, and it seemed a very strange thing to say, because that was what John always – yes, always, whether he was arguing or theorizing or just generally being a cock – thought about _him_. "So beautiful, John. Let me see you. Let me feel you."

Sherlock was a fast learner. The more he touched John, the more nimble and knowing his fingers became.

John didn't think he could last much longer. He closed his eyes, leaned back against the wall, and delivered himself into his partner's hands. One cupped his balls, probably examining the tightness there, while the other teased his shaft and swollen cockhead, sliding over John's most sensitive spots and coaxing the ecstasy from him. John threw his head back, utterly ravished by the sensations.

"So good. _Unhhh._ Sh'lock. I'm …"

This thing, this pleasure that Sherlock had wrought for him: it made John's thighs shake and his head tip back, made his muscles clench and his teeth clamp down. It pulsed in his balls like a heartbeat. There was no way to stop it. It spiraled and soared. Its liquid power forced its way up his length and out the slit, making him shudder and cry out. His cock jerked once, twice, three times, squeezing out the last of it, and then there was bonelessness, weightlessness, and pure, elemental rapture. The pleasure toyed with him, using his body as its conduit, and he gave himself up to it, let it buffet him like a storm at sea. He rose and fell with the waves. They tossed and submerged him and brought him to shore, and in the aftermath, he lay panting and naked and as wrecked as any castaway, safe at last in the cove of his lover's arms.

 _Lover_ , thought John, groggily. He turned the word over several times in his mind.

 _Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've left kudos or commented, I cannot thank you enough. Please accept my heartfelt gratitude ~~and some porn~~.
> 
> Extra shout-outs go, in reverse alphabetical order, to **strangegibbon** , who's just completed the extraordinary Sherlock novel "In Memoriam"; my wise, witty friend **inconcvbl** ; and fandom Boswell plus all-around sweetheart **Ariane DeVere**. Also, the word "undefended" is unapologetically stolen from **snarryfool** / **ancientreader** , who is a marvel.


	9. Always Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for sexual themes. Also, I don't know who raised John, but he has the mouth of a sailor.

As his cellmate collapsed into his arms in a post-orgasmic daze, Sherlock Holmes observed three things.

1\. He was in love with John Watson.

2\. A large and dangerous wall of liquid, created by the unauthorized coital thrashings of three Midorian fire snakes – who were, after all, supposed to be tidying up – was headed their way.

3\. John Watson was not in love with him and never would be, but _not_ for the obvious reasons.

In the moment before impact, Sherlock tried to lift John to safety, but John struggled and refused to go.

"Sherlock, wha—"

"John, look ou—"

A shimmering wave crashed over their heads, raining down mica like judgment. Time slowed like tree sap hardening into amber, catching them both in its golden soup. A geologic age passed. Their feet were no longer anywhere near the floor. Sherlock stretched out one hand to try to break their fall, but kept the other wrapped firmly around his partner. He couldn't see the other man due to the mica cloud enveloping them both, but he could feel him, heartbeat against elephantine heartbeat, frantic.

_John. John. I didn't know._

At this point, the fully submerged Sherlock made a fourth observation, and it was this: while John had been knocked down by #2 on the list, he himself had been brought to his knees by #3.

* * *

Olive Hexagon, their soldier acquaintance, marched Sherlock back to the cell that served as home and left him there. Although Sherlock fought manfully, John, who had sustained a bump on the head, was taken by Umber Triangle to the infirmary.

With the newfound perspective of the irrevocably smitten, Sherlock could see more clearly than ever that Ut had it bad for Oh. Whenever the officer was around, all Ut's internal shapes, linguistic and otherwise, would hurry to the side Oh was on and hang there in abject longing. It was like watching children press their faces against a bakery window. Sherlock was glad his own internal shapes, such as they were, stayed put when John was near. Mostly.

Alone, he bounced with nervous energy on the edge of the jelly bed and showered his missing cellmate with deductions.

"'I don't like men,'" said Sherlock, quoting his partner. "So you say. _Constantly_."

He felt mildly put out with John for allowing himself to become concussed. If he hadn't chosen to smack his head on the pool floor, the two of them would still be together, and he might have been able to surreptitiously press his lengthy thigh against John's smaller one as they sat.

Absent John stared in amazement. _Is this your idea of a post-date chat?_

"Have you ever seen a suspect trying to mislead law enforcement?" continued Sherlock. "Most suspects have no idea how to lie effectively. They lack imagination. They use the same words over and over again and think they're giving a convincing alibi. 'I was at my girlfriend's house.' 'I was in bed by ten.' 'I stayed up watching the Bond marathon.' They keep their stories simple, repeat things verbatim, and don't volunteer details."

Sherlock took a deep breath.

"John, you're a _terrible_ liar. Your normal speaking style is effusive, fluent, emphatic, but when it comes to dismissing the possibility of a real relationship with me, you repeat the same four syllables like a parrot. You fail to elaborate. You keep your story simple, so there's less chance of anyone finding you out."

_Hang on a minute …_

But Sherlock was on a roll, and not even incorporeal John could stop him.

"I've called you on the use of the plural before, thinking that it wasn't men you liked: it was me. I was flattering myself. My suspicions were focused on the wrong part of the sentence. The sleight of hand is in the verb."

The John who wasn't there ran short, nonexistent fingers through his short, insubstantial hair. _Leave it. For once. Leave it._

Sherlock Holmes did nothing of the kind.

"You never say, 'I'm not attracted to men,'" he replied. "You never say, 'I don't sleep with men.' You never say, 'I don't let men excite me to orgasm.' You merely repeat that you don't like them. The implication is that 'like' is too strong a word. You know, John, while you may not _appear_ clever …"

_Oi!_

"You have unexpected flashes of genius. You can't bring yourself to lie to me about your past homosexual experiences — perhaps due to the pervasive integrity that often comes with strong moral principle, or perhaps because you, to some limited extent, _care_ for me in particular." Sherlock permitted himself an eye roll. "Whatever your motives, you tell the truth but cloak it in misdirection. 'Like' isn't too strong a word; it's too weak. There was someone, and you lo—"

It was difficult to horrify a man who kept toes in the crisper drawer, but the idea of John giving his adoration to some imbecile seemed to do the trick.

"You _fancied_ yourself in love with him," spat out the sleuth. Even this version of the truth was unpleasant to articulate.

 _Fine,_ said John, shaking his invisible head. _Go on, then. I can see you won't stop until you've worn yourself out._

"Who was he? Military. Afghanistan. That's where you were for the last two years, and he's nothing if not fresh in your mind. You wouldn't have slept with a subordinate. You would have considered that an abuse of power, and rightly so. Did you date someone of your own rank? No. You dated _above_ your rank so that there was no possibility of coercion on your part. Stubborn, John. Very stubborn. If someone was going to risk mistreatment, you were determined that it would be you.

"So who was it? Your commanding officer? No. You're too noble to use your fit and quite … talented body in service of a promotion. A person of your character would tend to avoid even the appearance of such an arrangement. Pity. The rewards might have been substantial. Think it through, next time."

Absent John looked like he might very much like to take a swing at Sherlock for that last comment, but the latter had no fear of his incorporeal fists.

"Where was I? Yes. You're attracted to people with forceful personalities. People who are imposing. While you don't seem commanding at first glance, you can be quite dominant, and there aren't many people who can get your back against the wall. Did you sleep with a general? Unlikely. Your contact with officers on that level would have been limited. You fell in love with, and had sexual relations with, a major who belonged to another company and was therefore not your CO.

"What else? Taller than you – statistics make anything else unlikely, and besides, you have an obvious romantic interest in height – but under six feet. Your look of surprise whenever you consider how tall I am makes that clear. Fond of dogs …"

"Sherlock?" John walked in the cell door, accompanied by Ut. "Who are you talking to?"

"Major," said Sherlock, morose. He did not get up. "Afghanistan. Somewhere between 1.7 and 1.8 meters in height. Imperious. Intelligent: that's your type. A risk-taker, which is how he ended up in Afghanistan. Also your type. Different company. You met him at a forward operating base on a supply trip. Armadillo, was it?"

"Keenan."

"You loved him," accused Sherlock. He knew he sounded sentimental and weak, but he couldn't help it.

"Yeee-ess," said John, as though this were already obvious.

"Due to incomprehensible deficiencies in his personal taste, he didn't love you back. He merely used you for sex. And now you're refusing, against all logic, to fall in love with me. Because he hurt you, and I remind you of him."

"Sherlock."

"I'm not. I'm not him. I don't know if that makes things better or worse, as far as we stand. I …"

"Slow down." John sat down next to his partner, who was babbling uncontrollably. "Breathe. Can you breathe?"

Sherlock fixed John with a sharp stare. "Of course I can breathe."

"Then do."

Sherlock let his lungs expand to the fullest. The weight of the air was too much. He collapsed on his side and dropped his shaggy head into John's lap.

John rubbed his back. Sherlock could feel his hand catching on the right scapula on the upswing. Overcome by this display of human lewdness, Ut turned purple about the middle and promptly squidged out the door.

"You know," said John, "I should be really angry with you right now."

"Because I'm in love with you?"

The elevators that were John's eyebrows rose swiftly in surprise, then descended in concern. "No. No, I hadn't … I didn't … no. Sherlock, you weren't listening."

"Not listening to what?"

"Do you remember when I asked how they expected us to breed?"

"Yes." The thought propelled Sherlock into pleasant reverie.

"And do you remember me spending the next ten minutes telling you that I was in a very messy relationship with a major at FOB Keenan, and that I never wanted to go through anything like it again?"

This was unexpected.

"Not really, no."

"Did you _delete_ it?"

"No," said Sherlock, heavily. "You had it right the first time. I was … preoccupied."

"With what exactly?"

"With …" Sherlock waved his hands as though juggling sticks on fire. "Things."

"What sort of things?"

"Breeding things," admitted Sherlock. _Honestly_. It wasn't fair for John to build a mind bordello in Sherlock's brain, plunk himself down on the mind divan, unbutton his mind shirt, then chastise Sherlock for showing some interest.

John snorted. It was an exceedingly merry snort.

"I fail to see what's so entertaining."

"I know you do. C'mon, don't be angry. It's just … you're the most prurient 34-year-old virgin I've ever met."

Sherlock sniffed. "I hardly think I qualify as chaste. I did digitally stimulate you to completion not an hour ago."

"You know, you can say 'hand job.'"

"Hand job," echoed Sherlock dully, as if exposing the vanity of all things.

"Mmm," said John. "Love it when you talk dirty."

Sherlock found it very difficult to think while John was carding his hand through his hair. Nobody, not even Sherlock's mother, had ever been able to make it through the tangles, but John moved effortlessly, as if parting the Red Sea.

"You're getting us off track. The point is, you loved this contemptible idiot. And now you're not willing to love me. Which is unfair."

"I suppose no one's told you, but fairness is not really a characteristic of love. Or war."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes in suspicion at what appeared to be a quotation of some kind. "Please stop showing off your appalling familiarity with popular culture, 'literature,' and the ravings of the BBC. I don't appreciate being patronized, and anyway, it's irrelevant."

"Yes, well, you thought that about astronomy, and look where you are now."

Sherlock gave his partner the glare of the terminally unamused.

"Yeah," said John. "Um. Right. I loved him. He was a bastard and an arse and an utter shit, and I loved the hell out of him. God, how I loved that fucking prick."

Sherlock put a hand to his left temple, which was suddenly throbbing. "Is this my punishment for dismantling your alibi? Because it's working."

"No. It's mine. It hurts to think about him. Actually, you know what? It hurts to think about me. About what I became to make him happy. They say love is elevating. It isn't. Not always."

"Mmpf," grumbled Sherlock. "I expected as much."

"I would have done anything for him. I would have given that man my own kidney. No, both of them. Not even for health reasons, necessarily. He could have placed them on the mantelpiece for decorative purposes. The fucker."

" _Really_." Sherlock brightened at this.

"Don't tell me," said John, taking in Sherlock's suddenly cheerful face. "I don't want to know."

The two of them stared through the transparent wall of their enclosure at the passing stars.

"So I'm right," said Sherlock. "It doesn't matter what I feel for you. You're not willing to ..."

John looked at Sherlock, then looked away. The lack of contradiction hung heavily between them.

"Then I'll settle," said Sherlock, as much to himself as to John.

"OK, that is _not_ …"

"Look, I don't know how long we'll be here. You'll be sent home shortly, or I will, or one or both of us will be sent out the airlock." Sherlock wasn't sure he hadn't already been sent. He was experiencing a distinct lack of oxygen. "In the meantime, let me touch you. Will you do that? I've shown promise at it, and I'll get better. I can …"

"Will you stop? I don't need a list. That's enough."

Sherlock sulked.

"It's a good job you didn't come up with a safeword," he muttered. "You'd have said it forty times by now – _broccoli, broccoli, for God's sake, broccoli_ – and all efficacy would have worn off."

John chewed pensively on his index finger. "You know, you're probably not even in love with me. You're just high on sex. I got you off, and it flooded your system with oxytocin and dopamine and who knows what. It's bound to have left you a bit vulnerable."

"So you're saying what? That I've imprinted on you?" Sherlock rifled through his mind palace and found Konrad Lorenz, his white beard reminiscent of Colonel Sanders, hiding in the cupboard below the stairs. "That you introduced me to contact with my own species, and I'm compelled to follow you around for the rest of my days like a baby duck?"

John tried not to giggle at this.

"Stop laughing. I am _not_ a baby duck."

"Of course not," said John, giggling harder.

Operation Curtail John's Levity was not a success. The person in charge of the mission was co-opted by the enemy and ended up giggling too. Eventually, Sherlock pulled John down to kiss him.

"You're right," said John, looking into Sherlock's eyes and trying to catch his breath. "And wrong. He was like you, but different. Pragmatic."

"I'm not pragmatic?"

"No. You're utterly insane. Insane is the opposite of pragmatic."

"Just to be clear, you prefer insane."

"Yeah. From a medical standpoint, I shouldn't, but I do. You have no filter. You're ridiculously honest. Maybe not with everyone, but with me. Even if you _were_ using me for sex, which I sincerely doubt, you'd be telling me all about it while you were doing it. That's … strangely refreshing.

"But yeah. I'm not. Willing, I mean. To be in love. It's not the kind of thing a person would wish on themselves. It's hard and it's painful and it's usually a terrible mistake. So no. Really not."

Several minor planets ceased to rotate. The universe stopped expanding and began to contract. All things hurtled towards their inevitable heat death.

John cleared his throat.

"But I am," he clarified. "Anyway."

Sherlock's head tilted on its axis. He regarded John with puzzlement.

"With?"

"For crying out loud, you great pillock. With you."

John kissed him, and the universe started up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you have not read the recently completed Johnlock novel [The Thing Is](http://archiveofourown.org/works/499959/chapters/877019) by **TSylvestris** , now would be a really good time to do that. Go on. I'll wait.
> 
> A big thank you to my friend, the unstoppable **Ariane DeVere** , for hand-lettering herself an "Outed by Pandas" shirt. It was a sweet, funny, creative thing to do, and I was deeply touched. Though not, thankfully, by pandas.


	10. Transport

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, expect sexual themes and consent issues. And I do mean always. At the bank, in the park, on a ski lift. I've never been on a ski lift, but you can't be too careful.

"You know," said John, "I saw something when I was walking back from the infirmary with Ut. There's a room with about fifty giant pod things in it."

Sherlock was crouched down by the long transparent wall of their sleeping quarters. The wall looked out over the millions of incandescent stars that currently served as their front yard.

"Mm," said Sherlock. He was tending his experiments. The current one involved evaporating soup in a shallow pan that had previously held a number of bioluminescent plants. Although whether that number was one or a thousand, John couldn't tell. One Keplerian plant looked like goo with spangles in it. Many Keplerian plants looked like more goo with spangles in it. If there was anything mathematically discrete about goo with spangles, John had yet to discover it.

"They looked like giant clamshells or something. At first I thought it was, you know, the mollusk section. There were all these Keplerians with pentagons up top squidging around. Scientists, right?"

Sherlock gave a little hum under his breath. It was assent, but just barely. John forged ahead.

"Well, one of the scientists goes over to one of the shells, and it opens up. It's all lit up with different shapes inside. Junior scientist, Plum Tomato, whatever you want to call him, squidges himself into the shell. He presses some of the shapes, and the clamshell shuts. Then it starts shaking and light shoots out the middle. And when it opens again, there's nobody in it."

While John felt that this was very much a _ta-da_ moment, Sherlock didn't herald it with so much as a grunt.

"Hello? The scientist wasn't in the shell anymore."

“Mm.”

“'Mm?' That's all you've got for me?” John stared at his companion in disbelief. “I’ve seen ‘Mm,’ and this is not it. This is ‘Wow.’ Or ‘Woah.’ Or ‘Bon voyage.’ Sherlock, the shell is a form of transportation. It has to be. I don't know how things work in Kensington, but in Aldershot, when the lift leaves the ground floor, it hasn't just blinked out into nothingness: it's gone to the first."

"Has it really? Fascinating, John. Your wealth of life experience never ceases to amaze me."

"Listen, you arse. You do realize that this is potentially our way home? That what I saw is the Keplerian version of – well, not a big station, not Charing Cross, mind you, but at least Woolwich Dockyard? Look, I'm sorry I don't have more exciting news for you. I'm sure you'd rather hear that the shell contained two dead triplets, Jack the Ripper, and a …"

John didn't have time to throw in the relocated manatee. "The test results are back," interrupted Sherlock.

"For your sperm sample?"

Sherlock nodded.

"When?"

"Just now. Ut told me when it came by with room service."

"Yes. Our evening meal. One full portion of which you are playing with, rather than eating."

"I hardly think this is the time to evaluate my dietary habits."

John knew better than to ask when that felicitous time would come. It was his opinion that the time in question arrived several times a day, whereas Sherlock was convinced that it never arrived. They sniped companionably about it roughly every two earth days, with the end result that that was now how often Sherlock ate.

John walked over to his companion and sat down beside him, looking out at the steely Wartenberg wheels of the stars.

"The results," he prompted.

Sherlock bunched his brows together and stabbed accusingly at his pan of experimental soup with a pale index finger.

"According to Ut, the results were 'wiggly.' Or possibly 'squirmy.' I don't care about the results."

"Then why are you so bloody upset?"

"I'm not _upset_ ," said Sherlock, waving one arm about as though shepherding an unseen brass section through the finale of _Boléro_. This was a sign that he was about to go off on a tear about "observation" and "obviousness" and "logic." John thought it best to redirect him now, before the crests of his ears had time to transform themselves into half-Vulcan points, quivering with suppressed rage in his unruly hair.

"Fine. Noted. The thing that …" John fumbled for the words. "Hasn't upset you. Do you want to talk about it?"

"The scientists, and Plum Duff in particular, think my sperm is good, productive, well suited to breeding. It's panda-quality, as far as they're concerned. John, they don't think I'm the problem. They're done with me, and now they're going to go after you."

"Ah." John rubbed a hand over his face.

"I don't want them touching you," said Sherlock.

"That makes two of us," replied John.

Something seemed to be on Sherlock's mind. As minds went, it was vast and expansive. John pictured it as a sort of dais. Something was virtually always on it.

"Your reluctance," Sherlock ventured. "At first you didn't want me …"

"I always wanted you," corrected John. "I just didn't want to want you, if that makes sense."

John's initial attraction to Sherlock had not come calling in a stretch limo equipped with a bar and a king-sized waterbed. Rather, it had come screeching up to the curb in a van full of rubber tubing and duct tape, then wrestled him kicking and shouting into the back. It was nothing he had consented to, it was just _there_ , and from the beginning, it had borne down upon him with a roaring inexorability.

"I suppose. As much as anything you come up with ever does."

"Thanks."

"You've been averse to participating in the shipboard breeding program from the moment you got here."

"You can hardly blame me for that."

"I don't blame you. If anything, I marvel at the myriad forms your objections have taken. From the start, you doubted that we would be able to reproduce, despite the fact that Keplerian technology is obviously advanced, or else we wouldn't be 600 light-years away from NW1. Then you were plagued by concerns about consent. Yours, of course, but also mine, as you believed we were both on drugs and that I, as a virgin, would have no idea what I was consenting to. You were also reluctant to fall back into another relationship with a man, because your last one went so badly. Is this an accurate summary of things so far?"

"Yeah. Fair enough."

"Furthermore, your last real relationship exacerbated your self-directed homophobia. While you support your lesbian sister, you've been quick to disavow your own same-sex leanings: an attitude which, by the way, is disingenuous, patronizing, and intellectually dubious. Consequently, you've been squeamish about giving yourself up wholeheartedly to Keplerian research."

John gave a short, exasperated huff. Being himself short and exasperated, it was the huff he was most qualified to give.

"Oh, baby. It turns me on so much when you talk like that. Can we just fuck now? I don't know about you, but I'm having trouble restrai—"

"Don't pretend that our interpersonal issues are entirely on me. I'm not the one who's spent his entire time on board congratulating himself for being straight. Whom did you think you were impressing when you made sure that I knew that your assignations in the public loo took place in the ladies', not the gents'?"

"Wait, what? How do you even _know_ about the public loo?"

"You're oppositional …"

" _I'm_ oppositional?"

"And you refuse to have sex at someone else's say-so, unless, of course, that person is wearing a mini-skirt and standing in a shrub on Hampstead Heath. Whilst I may be able to talk you out of these illogical positions …"

"Not like that, you can't."

"We now reach the crux of the matter, and I don't see a way past it. I'm forced to conclude that your current objection to participating in the breeding program is more logically coherent than the previous ones, and therefore, less amenable to change." Sherlock drew his knees up to his chest and balanced his chin on top of them.

"And what do you see as my current objection, since obviously, a sense of privacy and a desire for self-determination aren't reason enough?"

"You don't want to have children with me."

John blinked.

"Steady on. I never …"

"You never said anything about the public loo, either. Not with your lips."

"You know that we've only just started dating, right? This is very early in the game. It's not that I don't want to have children. Eventually. With a long-term partner."

"As in, not me."

"Quite possibly you. But it's a question of when and where. I don't want children now, and I don't want children _here_."

"Where else would we have them? You've said yourself that we can't breed naturally. From what you're saying, there's no current earth technology that would allow the two of us to reproduce. But there may be a Keplerian technology that would permit it."

"Sherlock, be reasonable."

"I'm always reasonable."

John took a deep, Sherlock-cleansing breath. "Look at this place. We're either in a prison colony or a zoo. Does that sound like somewhere a child should be?"

"It's also a lab," Sherlock pointed out. "A science station. I would have been fine here as a child. I'm largely fine here now."

"Largely."

"Any unhappiness I've experienced has been prompted by conflict between us."

"That's awful. Or romantic. Or both."

Sherlock poked determinedly at his soup.

"So how are they planning to collect, you know, a sample? From me?" John wasn't looking forward to the answer.

"Ut says they'd just as soon milk you."

"Well, that's lovely. Ergh. Can you not use that as a verb? Some of us drink that stuff."

Sherlock was as interested in rearranging his vocabulary to suit John's delicate sensibilities as he was in upgrading his diet.

"I intend to point to my own experience in the milking bay as evidence that humans can't be stimulated to orgasm via the methods they use. I believe I can talk them into accepting an alternative method."

"Sorry, what? You're going to promise them you'll stroke me off and let them help themselves to the aftermath?"

"We know that 'stroking you off,' as you so eloquently put it, works. It will give them the results they want, and it will buy us time."

"That's not the point!"

"Why is it that whenever I bring up something that's unimpeachably true during one of our arguments, you respond with 'That's not the point?'"

"Because it isn't! If you're going to touch me, it should be because we both want it, not because somebody else feels like having a peep show, or a collection of human infants, or anything else."

"Do you not want my hands on you?"

"Of course I do. But not …"

"Oh, _God_. You want to get off. I want to get you off. What does it matter what anyone else wants? Are you the kind of man who would refuse to go out with me just because your mother thought I came from a good family and had nice teeth?"

"You have _British_ teeth," specified John. "A bit ramshackle on the bottom. A bit Stonehenge."

"Marvelous. You dislike my teeth."

"I love your tee—"

"I refuse to let Plum Duff do this. How dare it touch you? I don't mind if Ut pats you, but if Plum Duff extends an appendage in your direction, I am going to rip it off and strangle that idiot with it."

"You know, that's really not…"

"If anyone puts an appendage of any kind on you or _in_ you with sexual intent, it's going to be me. I am _not_ giving you up to a giant jelly baby with a pentagon on its head, and I'm not letting anyone put you in a _machine_."

By rights, the sound of Sherlock's bellowing should have echoed off the walls. John wondered how the Keplerian materials managed to absorb it.

"A machine," he repeated.

Sherlock nodded, then kicked half-heartedly at his pan of soup.

"You didn't mind when they used it on you," John said.

"I mind this."

John pinched the bridge of his own nose. "So. How much longer until they come to collect?"

"The gestation period of a Camparian sand hamster."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"Possibly one night. It's a very efficient hamster."

"Do you think they'll be able to?" asked John. "You know, make children. Out of our combined samples."

Sherlock looked at John as though he were inquiring after the street price of the 2006 High Tea and Savories Barbie Doll Gift Set with mocha-hued cocktail dress and matching cocoa pumps.

"Not my area," he commented. Given his relative lack of familiarity with, for example, kissing, this was the understatement of the year.

"Right. OK. Shit. I think they actually did create mice with two genetic fathers in Texas just recently. There was an article about it in _Biology of Reproduction_."

"You read it?"

"I waited until it was summarized in the _Daily Mail_ ," admitted John, "and then read that. Don't give me that face! I'm a field surgeon. Ask me anything you want about IEDs, but don't expect me to spend all day wading through some wank about tetraploid complementation and functional oocytes. I don't know. It's a complicated procedure. They put some stem cells from a boy mouse into a Petri dish. Boy cells. What? Stop smiling, you fucker. This is science."

"I must have got something in my eye. By all means, continue."

"Some of the stem cells just naturally lose their Y chromosomes while they're sitting in the culture. So then, instead of having two sex chromosomes, they've only got the one."

"And the resulting cells, what are they? Boy cells or girl cells?"

"Neither. They're not XY or XX. They're XO."

Sherlock chewed his lower lip. "Like us."

"Not like us. We're XY. Trust me on this. If you were XO, you wouldn't have a dick."

"No, I mean like the symbols for us in Keplerian. You're a circle, I'm a cross. Perhaps they're referencing the process for making children with two fathers."

"I hope not."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, the first mouse father is an embryo. And dead."

"And the second mouse father?"

"He mates with a chimeric female mouse. 'Chimeric' means that she was injected with the first mouse father's XO cells early in her development, so she's kind of a genetic patchwork. Look, I think you're making too much out of this. A cross and a circle could mean anything. I had an American girlfriend who used to sign her emails that way. The X stands for 'kiss,' and the O for 'hug.'"

Sherlock did not look enthusiastic about the effusive trollop formerly known as John's American girlfriend.

"I'd rather be the first mouse father than the second," he muttered, stirring his pan of soup with his thumb.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to sleep with anyone who isn't you," said Sherlock. "And if you're going to sleep with someone else, I'd rather not be around when it happens."

John grinned. "You haven't slept with me yet. I might be rubbish."

Sherlock fixed John with an appraising eye. Two, in fact, both the color of the sky over Regent's Park just before a light snow.

"That," he said, "remains to be seen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The radiant and talented **Ariane DeVere** has given me permission to link to a photo of her modeling her ["Outed by Pandas" shirt](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/3141/69417)! She made it herself, and I love it. And its creator. I recommend sitting down before clicking through to the photograph so as not to be bowled over by awesome. 
> 
> Resident biology expert **strangegibbon** (encouragement hers, mistakes mine) found something amazing in an Asian market. It's XO Sauce. Guess what: it has a [panda](http://s1152.photobucket.com/albums/p496/mirithgriffin/?action=view&current=XOPandaSauce.jpg) on it. Has anyone eaten it? Does it complement dishes other than panda? Let me know. 
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who's commented or clicked a button in support. It makes me happy and grateful and it limbers up my typing fingers.


	11. Phase Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Promises: Men going at it.
> 
> Warning: Autoerotic asphyxiation is mentioned in a forensic context. None of the sex actually practiced in this chapter is autoerotic ("which is fine, by the way") or asphyxiative ("bit not good").

Sherlock woke from a long sleep on the blackcurrant jelly bed. John was no longer clasped in his arms, as he had been when Sherlock had closed his eyes. Instead, he was searching for data. In Sherlock's crotch. With his lips.

"John?" mumbled Sherlock. He was naked, and his limbs were flung out to the cardinal points like the sails of a large and gangly pinwheel.

On the rare occasions when he slept, Sherlock liked to spread himself out. It was part of his overall plan for appearing bigger than he was. During waking hours, he was able to make strategic use of a booming voice (his overcoat, sadly, was still on Baker Street), but asleep, he had to make do by spreading his limbs like a four-armed starfish. John, who was trickier and more subtle than he looked, had apparently taken advantage of this and ensconced himself between Sherlock's pale thighs while he was still unconscious.

Sherlock correctly deduced that this was turnabout for having been pushed out of bed.

John looked up at Sherlock, his face lit by the warm peach-gold glow of the bioluminescent plants that filled the room's lamps and sconces. The light they cast was flattering to John's skin. He looked as though he were made of butterscotch. Although the plants had been blue-green when Sherlock first arrived, they'd recently added silver, gold, and a peachy and decidedly non-alabaster flesh tone to their chromatic repertoire. Sherlock suspected they had cribbed these colors off of John.

"Want you," said John.

"Want me what?"

John kissed Sherlock's inner thigh, then licked a trail from the spot he had kissed up into his pubic hair. "Does this give you any idea?"

It was very hard to think when John had his sex voice on. Sherlock felt his blood rush south, where it formed a welcoming party in his hardening cock. The welcoming party's banner read, "Take me, John."

"Some," said Sherlock, by which he meant, "virtually none." He didn't like to admit to being out of his league if he could help it.

It occurred to Sherlock that his anatomy was becoming more Keplerian under John's influence. A few words or a touch from John, and Sherlock's prick would orient itself towards the object of his affections, its graceful curve rising towards him in silent and hopeful longing. As with most human males, his awakening desire expressed itself cylindrically. If it was odd to have all one's squares and triangles rush to one side, it was no odder than having a portion of one's body expand itself into a rod for one's beloved's perusal. In both cases, the relevant organs did their best to get closer to the places on their lovers where they might be housed.

Oblivious to these deliberations, John was busy finding out more about Sherlock's pubic hair. With his nose. Which was nuzzling somewhere Sherlock had never been nuzzled before.

"Blow job," said John. "Want to give you one."

"Ah," said Sherlock.

"Will you let me? I know … well. You've never had one."

It was clear that John knew a lot more about the situation than Sherlock did.

"If you'd like to blow on me, you may. I trust you."

John's round eyes somehow went more open than they already were. He looked simultaneously touched and incredulous.

"Sorry," he said, regrouping. "Maybe they called it something else at Eton. Fellatio?"

Sherlock frowned. John had said "fellatio" before, right after the Keplerian reinforcements had barged into their room to watch them breed. Sherlock hadn't had time to inquire what it meant. Was it Italian? _Adagio_ , _allegro non troppo_ , _fellatio_. It sounded like a tempo marking. There was something operatic about it.

"Fucking hell." Only John could swear and have it sound that fond, that inclusive and empathetic. "Sherlock, how … how much did you delete about sex?"

 _Tedious_ , thought Sherlock. It was one of his many mental synonyms for "mortifying." Not because it had to do with sex, which didn't alarm him. It couldn't. He'd never had it. No, it was embarrassing because it had to do with things that he didn't know, and which John thought he should.

"To tell you _that_ , I would need to know what I deleted. I don't know what I've deleted. That's the whole point of deleting it."

"Humor me. A rough estimate."

"The unnecessary parts!"

"Shit. So … pretty much all of it?"

This seemed likely. Sherlock checked his mind bordello for information, but the only noteworthy thing in it was his mind-John, who had shucked his mind-shirt and was lounging around by the Jacuzzi. A building permit tacked to the door indicated that the entire area was of very recent construction.

"OK. We don't have to do this, but I want to suck you off. Which is probably a more accurate term than 'blow.'" John searched for terms that Sherlock would know. "I want to give you an orgasm with my mouth."

"Why?" Sherlock's intellectual curiosity demanded to be satisfied. Sherlock's cock had other priorities. It reached up and tapped John on the chin, in case he was having trouble locating it. Given the state of the thing, this was unnecessary.

"Because I haven't done anything for you yet. And I want to."

"You've done plenty for me."

"Not sexually. I haven't got you off yet. Not on purpose. It's different when you do it on purpose. I want to make you feel good. You made me feel – ungh, Sherlock, fantastic, back at the pool. I can't stop thinking about it. And …"

Sherlock knew more about what "and" meant than he did about blow jobs.

"Romance," he translated. This was a subset of sentiment. "You're a romantic. If you're taken to the lab, you want to have this to remember. You want to be able to look back and imagine us together. John, I …"

_I what? Won't let them take you?_

If there was a way to prevent John from being taken when their captors willed it, Sherlock hadn't found it. John had already been taken from him once, at the cleansing pool. It was infuriating, and it made Sherlock want to kick something with his size-11 feet.

"Yeah," said John. "So. Can I?"

Sherlock didn't correct his grammar. Although he was not usually concerned with etiquette, doubts about the appropriateness of giving one's beloved a lesson on auxiliary verbs ("I don't know, can you?") during an affectionate moment crept into his mind. Also, there was the distinct possibility that a corrected John would refuse to pleasure him.

"Yes," said Sherlock, and left it at that.

* * *

"Oh God," said Sherlock.

John was licking him. Holding Sherlock's testicles aloft, he licked a warm, wet, targeted stripe down the seam of his sack to the plain of his perineum, then back again.

"All right?" said John.

It was better than all right. John's attentions made the fine hairs on Sherlock's legs stand on end. Like his cock, these oriented themselves towards John.

"Ungh," remarked Sherlock, who felt a sudden need to express himself with grunts.

John correctly identified this as assent. He took one of Sherlock's balls into his mouth and sucked on it. Sherlock's erect penis throbbed impatiently against his stomach.

"Give me feedback," said John. "I want to know if something isn't working for you."

Sherlock calculated the probability of things not working for him in this particular situation as … low. Not five percent, not three percent, just ... quite low. The haze of enjoyment he was currently experiencing made mathematical precision impossible. Seeking more information, he propped himself up on his elbows and stared at John, who was busy petting the underside of Sherlock's cock with his face. Sherlock groaned and fell back against the jelly.

"Look at you," said John. "Gorgeous. You're so …" He lifted his head and stroked Sherlock's side, gentling him as he would a horse. "I want to do everything to you at once."

Sherlock nodded, overwhelmed. He felt as though John were already doing everything to him at once.

"I don't know how long I'll last if you suck me."

Saying the words made them more real. A shiver of electricity fingered Sherlock's spine.

"I don't mind. God, Sherlock. When you get excited, it's so fucking hot I can hardly stand it. I wouldn't care if you came in five seconds. Does it bother you that we didn't draw it out longer last time?"

"Possibly," said Sherlock. It was a three-syllable word for "yes."

"It may just be that you're inexperienced," said John, licking his lips. John had a pronounced virgin kink, and it seemed to be getting worse. "Premature ejaculation – not that I'm saying you're premature, because any time you come, it's Christmas, as far as I'm concerned – it's more common in men who don't have sex often. Your body thinks it won't have the chance again, so it hurries to make up for that."

Sherlock wished _John's_ body would hurry. His erection bounced against his stomach, trying to flag down physical attention.

"Do you want to think about dull things while we do it? You know, digits of pi after the decimal, the periodic table. Some men find that helps them slow down."

"I _like_ the periodic table," said Sherlock. His cock thickened a bit for emphasis. "John, get _on_ with it."

John scooted back on his knees and rubbed his short hair against the insides of Sherlock's thighs, letting Sherlock feel him there. Then he crawled over Sherlock and kissed his bare hip.

"Want you," repeated John. "I'm going to take you into my mouth now, all right? Tell me if …"

"Binary system," proposed Sherlock. He was willing to sacrifice nuance if it would mean getting in John's mouth faster. "If I don't say no, it's yes."

"All right," said John. "We can continue to get a feel for things as we go. I'll check on you periodically, but otherwise, I'll keep going until you tell me to stop."

John closed his mouth over the tip of Sherlock's prick. His tongue – his clever, amazing tongue – rested gently against the frenulum.

Sherlock gasped as a jolt of pleasure shot through him.

"All right?" said John. It came out a bit garbled. He had a dick in his mouth, after all.

"Yes," said Sherlock. Having John touch him there, even in the absence of motion, was incredibly arousing. John pulled off him, then sank back down on him. Sherlock watched his own pink slickness disappear into his lover's. In color, in texture, the inside of John's mouth mirrored the slippery tip of Sherlock's penis. It was like a neon sign from the universe proclaiming that one belonged with the other.

Sherlock liked silky things, and John was surprisingly silky. Bits of him, anyway. His hair, when Sherlock stroked it, was splendidly soft. His face was weathered, as befitted a soldier, but sun and bullets hadn't touched him everywhere. The skin of his arse was especially smooth and fine-grained, as Sherlock had discovered by pressing against him as he slept. Out of all of John's silkinesses, however, the most luxurious was to be found within his sweet, hot mouth. Sherlock moaned with pleasure as it enveloped him.

John pulled off him again. "I'm going to go all the way down your shaft, then back again. Too much attention to the head will make you go off sooner. That's where most of your nerve endings are."

Sherlock didn't put it past his nerve endings to figure out where John was and then migrate to suit. He nodded anyway.

John took him in, moved down until his lips were halfway to the base, then came back up again. When he reached the crown, he gave the underside of Sherlock's glans a lingering lick, then moved back down. He did this several times, and each time, the heat in Sherlock's groin became more intense.

"Too much," blurted Sherlock. "John, I'm going to."

John pulled off him again. "Let's rest a moment, then I'll keep going. God, you're tightly wound. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"

Sherlock looked down the length of his body. At the moment, his physical form mostly reminded him of a sundial, with the gnomon pointing fiercely to John o'clock.

"I could do this to you all night."

"Keplerian nights last three times longer."

"I stand by my original statement."

In addition to being enthusiastic, John was the nicest feeling thing in the history of nice-feeling things. From a purely tactile point of view, John was a marvel. Sherlock tried to explain to John how nice he felt in the hopes that John would suck on his penis some more.

"You're soft, John. So soft. The inside of your mouth. To listen to you talk, you'd think you'd be all prickles."

"You're babbling," said John. The skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "I'll chalk that up to my sexual prowess. Do you want to continue?"

"Let's."

"OK, focus on breathing. Breathe in, then let it all out. If you breathe too shallowly, you'll be more likely to come."

"Autoerotic asphyxiation," recited Sherlock. "Carbon dioxide build-up in the brain."

John gave him a complicated look. "Of course. You don't know what a blow job is, but you're familiar with _that_."

"Necessary information. Important to distinguish between homicide and inadvertent self-harm in cases where the victim has died from lack of oxyg— _gah_ , John, yes, more."

John was brilliant. He licked and sucked but withheld the pleasure of his hands, knowing that any added sensation would shatter Sherlock's already precarious self-control.

"I'm getting closer – no, don't stop." Sherlock clutched at John's shoulders with his thighs. "Please don't stop."

His partner shot him a look of pure lust, then took him down to the root. Sherlock made a mental note that begging turned John on.

"Ohhhh, _God_ ," he drawled. "You're exceptional. Please, John. Will you let me penetrate you some day? Not just your mouth, but …"

John, whose mouth was full, gave an amiable grunt. His tongue was slick and his lips were wicked.

Sherlock was babbling for real now. He heard himself praising John's technique, begging John to continue, pleading with John to let him come, asking John if he could fuck his face. At this last request, John thrust two hands under Sherlock, grabbed his arse, and began fucking his own throat with the head of Sherlock's prick.

Sherlock bucked and cried out as John suckled him. It was too much. The pleasure needed to leave his overworked system, and the only pathway out was through his prick. For a moment, every muscle in his body seized up – his abdominals, his quadriceps, his biceps, all mimicking the absolute rigidity of what John was sucking. Then the orgasm hit him. It slammed into him with the intensity of a meteor crashing into an Earthly sea. With his pulsing cock as the epicenter, waves of pleasure expanded out from his core. They surged into his belly, his thighs, his nipples, his fingertips. He swore he could feel them in his hair.

The pleasure had unmoored him. He had never felt so liquid. For a moment, he could see himself as if from above. Head tossed back, arms in disarray, thighs wide apart and trembling, he flooded John's mouth with the evidence of his joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Much gratitude to everyone who's commented or left kudos. This chapter goes out to **mattsloved1** , who says she's writing me a Christmas fic! Please accept this traditional holiday depiction of a blow job. I believe that's how we express heartfelt appreciation.
> 
> Also huge thanks to **staceuo** , who sent me a necklace made out of _an actual vinyl record with pandas on it_. So badass.


	12. Tempest on a Jelly Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Promises: Men going at it.

John tumbled and tossed on a sea of dreams. His dreams smelled of Scots pine, rain, dark hollows, the secret places of the earth. He ran through the woods at night, following the sound of footsteps. Peering through the trees, he caught a glimpse of dark curls, a body like birch bark, a holly berry mouth. A sylph, an Ariel, a creature of the air trapped and taken over by the forest.

"Find me," said Sherlock, and John went to him. He brought him to ground near a pool of shining water. He held him down in a bed of soft moss and pine needles, this wild thing, this airy spirit. He felt Sherlock's heart pounding against his rib cage, marveled to watch the pale chest rise and fall under his fingertips.

He wasn't human. He couldn't be. Men were blocky, earthbound things, creatures of right angles. Sherlock was soaring and ethereal, a creature of arcs and slants. Naked, he was a fugue, his quicksilver themes repeating themselves as one ripple repeats another. The shape of his almond eyes found its echo in his pink and oval areolas. The shape of his lower lip recalled the curves of his hair, his arse, his awakening cock. He was beautiful, and he quickened John's breath and stirred his desire.

John sucked his fingers. He prepared a place for himself inside the air sprite's body. He entered, and Sherlock closed tightly around him. They rocked and tossed like trees in a storm, and the wind spoke through them in moans and whispers.

"Free me," said Sherlock. "I've been here too long. Let me find release."

Trembling, John did as he was told. Sherlock cried out. John felt him rising, felt him lifting up, freed at last from his enchantment. Now it was John who was trapped, confined in the dark forest.

But the sprite wouldn't leave. "Come with me," he said, and he stretched his long arms down to pull at John, and then John was also rising, spiraling upwards into his lover's kingdom of air.

* * *

"Are you about to come?" Sherlock wanted to know.

John blinked and looked around. Sherlock was lying on his side in the blackcurrant jelly bed. Positioned as the yin to John's yang, he was staring intently at John's nether regions.

John scrambled upright, moving to cover himself with his hands. His erection softened instantly, deflated by the pin of his partner's sharp gaze.

"Jesus, Sherlock, what? I don't know. No. Can you not stare at me when I'm asleep?"

"You stare at me when I'm asleep," pointed out Sherlock. John didn't ask how he knew that. It seemed like something Sherlock would know.

"That's _different_ ," said John, though how wasn't immediately obvious.

"Lie down," said Sherlock. "It's my turn to suck you."

"Blow jobs are not, strictly speaking, a turn-based activity. They're not Cluedo. Cripes. Is that why you woke me up? So I wouldn't come without your say-so?"

Sherlock looked mildly hurt.

"Of course not. I woke you up because you've been very specific that you don't want your ejaculate being turned into progeny in the ship's lab. I've found a way around that."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"I'll bring you to completion, and then I'll swallow."

"Oh, God."

"What? It's perfect. The reason the Keplerians want to harvest sperm from you is that they want to know why your DNA isn't establishing itself inside me in grand panda fashion. If you _put_ your DNA inside me by letting me suck you, they can scan me and find it exactly where they expect it, at least in the short term. That ought to satisfy them for a while."

"And the reason you woke me up just then was …"

"Because you dislike it when I sexually overpower you, and I didn't have your consent to swallow your ejaculate as you slept. I couldn't permit you to ejaculate on your stomach, because we don't know when the Keplerians will be back with the cup. You've been very clear that you don't want your sperm to end up in their possession. The only thing to do was prevent you from ejecting any."

"That's … that's good, actually," said John, eyebrows rising in surprise. "Empathetic of you. Ethical, even."

Sherlock glared. "I know it's good."

"No, really. I'm just a bit wound up because I dreamt about you and I haven't got off since the pool and all we ever talk about is fucking and my balls are verging on indigo. Also … what if you swallow and they show up right after and _still_ want sperm in a cup? You know, milking machine and all that? It's going to be difficult for me to give them what they want if you've already made me come."

"Mmm," said Sherlock. His silken voice wrapped itself around John like a dark, enveloping blindfold. "A risk."

"Uh-huh."

"Not safe."

"Yeah."

"Completely inadvisa—"

"Oh, shit," said John, licking his lips. "Do you have to punch all my buttons like that? 'John, it's dangerous. We couldn't possibly. Think of your leg.' Damn it, Sherlock."

"Why wouldn't I resort to that? It works."

John groaned, but he lay back down on the rippling jelly bed nonetheless. "It does," he said. "Do your worst."

* * *

"AhahaHA!" It was ten minutes later, and John was squealing in a fashion unbecoming an officer. He was still no closer to climax, but he was a lot closer to inadvertently kicking Sherlock in the head. "Stop, stop, _stop_."

"John? Whatever are you doing?"

"I'm being tickled half to death, you idiot. Let go."

With the air of long practice, Sherlock removed his hands and slowly held them up where John could see them. John gave himself a mental reminder to ask Sherlock more about his past dealings with law enforcement.

"You gave me to understand you preferred build up. Teasing. It's not as if I have a vast store of memorized foreplay techniques at my disposal."

"So you're what? Trying everything plus the kitchen sink to see what happens?"

As soon as the words left John's mouth, he mentally shook his head. He was. Of course he was.

Sherlock steepled his fingers. John had never seen a person steeple his fingers in mid-air before. Usually there was some kind of desk involved. Sherlock was a grandmaster in contemplative hand gestures.

"If I asked you for a full list of everything that is capable of giving you pleasure," he asked, "would you be able to supply it? Am I to believe that your former partners have hit upon everything that you might enjoy? How very resourceful of them."

"They certainly hadn't done _that_ ," said John, contemplating the events of a minute previous.

"Then how were you to know that you wouldn't like it? You didn't think you'd like the ear chewing, and you ended up asking for more."

"OK. You wanted to know what I'd like. So you were going through all the possible permutations, yeah? Which naturally led to you grabbing me by the hips, pinning me to the bed, and licking _the backs of my bloody knees_." All of John's crevices were ticklish, and the backs of the knees were no exception.

This summary of events appeared to offend Sherlock's sense of thoroughness. He snorted like an affronted horse. "It wasn't just the knees," he muttered.

John pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right, yes. I wouldn't want to accuse you of being unsystematic. You did lick pretty much everything else first."

"Necessary," Sherlock proclaimed. "There are variations. The back of your neck tastes like clean laundry: Orkney wool, Marks and Spencer cotton, no silk. Your elbows taste like envelopes — linen rag, handmade, wedding quality, 70 lb. weight. There's a hint of apricot in the bits behind your …"

Sherlock took in the look John was giving him and stopped in his tracks.

"This is how it is for me," he said, quietly. "I want you. I already have a sense of your mind, and now I want a sense of your body. I won't settle for anything less. I want to know the smell of your hair when it's bone dry or soaking wet, and how its scent is affected by all the gradations of humidity in between. I want to know what your scar looks like under black light, sunlight, the infrared from night-vision goggles. I want to taste you in a variety of places and in a variety of emotional states. I want to measure how fast your cuticles grow on your fingers and toes and determine whether there's a difference in the growth rate and why. I want to know everything about you. Are you expecting me to react to you differently? Because I don't think I can."

John put an arm around his partner and pulled him closer. Sherlock leaned into him and allowed his hair to be stroked.

"It's fine," said John. "It's love. I feel it too. It doesn't, um, express itself exactly like that for most people, but it's fine."

"What I did to you just now. The licking. Not good?"

John breathed deeply. "Most of it was _very_ good. Some of it was amazing. And you did stop when I asked you to. It's just that last bit was …"

"Too intimate?"

"Too _ticklish_. Ticklish, Sherlock. Do you understand tickling, or did you empty that from your Mind Palace when you took out the recycling?"

From the look Sherlock was giving him, John could see that ticklishness had gone the way of common courtesy and polyester. If these things had ever taken up space in the Mind Palace, that space had long since been repapered, newly carpeted, and completely refurnished.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." John took the opportunity to further Sherlock's education by pushing him face first into the bed and climbing on top of him. Seated backwards astride his mount, he helped himself to the backs of Sherlock's knees and the soles of his elongated feet.

Sherlock's voice was no less imperious for being muffled by jelly. "I hardly see what you hope to accompli— _ahahoohaHA_ , stop, oh God, _stop_."

John slid off and came to rest beside his lover, his north still facing Sherlock's south.

"Truce?" he asked.

Sherlock gazed at him with shrewd, sea glass eyes. "What about my offer?"

* * *

It turned out that John's previous partners had _not_ discovered everything his body might find enjoyable. For example, no one had ever sixty-nined him on a jelly bed.

"Mngh," said John, his mouth full, as Sherlock brought the same level of attention to his cock that he'd previously given his knees.

Sherlock stopped mid-lick. "Don't get me off again," he said, from the vicinity of John's pelvis. "I'm focusing. You're welcome to show me where you want me to put my mouth, but then leave off."

John moved his hand towards his crotch, but Sherlock caught him by the wrist.

"Not your hand. Show me with your tongue."

"Oh? _Oh_." John was on board with this. "Here," he said, then licked the underside of Sherlock's cock once. It was sweetly musky at the base, but tasted different, cleaner, near the head. "Start near my balls and go up."

Sherlock licked him from base to tip. John wriggled.

"What happens if I lick in the other direction?" Sherlock wanted to know. He tried it.

"Good," said John. "Surprising. Teasing. Because it starts off as intense and then backs off. Then it goes back to being intense again."

He neglected to say, "That's not how people usually do it." Sherlock wasn't especially keen on thinking about John with other people, and anyway, the fact that people normally did something was not, to him, a recommendation.

"Your testicles are sensitive," declared Sherlock, who hadn't yet gone to town on them.

"Um, I imagine most blokes' are, yeah."

"I'm not talking about pain, I'm talking about pleasure. You told me to touch mine when I was trying to get off. Inference: that sort of attention arouses you."

"Yeah." John realized Sherlock was asking permission. "Please, don't let me stop you. Have at it."

Sherlock coaxed John's legs further apart, then buried his head between them. John could feel him snuffling about down there. Then there was the warmth and wetness of Sherlock tonguing him along the seam of his ball sack to the delicate skin behind. It felt oddly vulnerable to be spread open like this with another man between his thighs. Major Pike at FOB Keenan — John refused to think of his first name — had been happy to receive oral attention, but not willing to reciprocate.

A lack of willingness was not one of Sherlock's issues in bed. He took one of John's testicles into his inquisitive mouth and sucked on it. When John's body clenched, Sherlock made a noise of discovery, at least so far as the intervening anatomy would permit.

"Wh-what?" managed John.

Sherlock left off sucking and began trailing his fingers experimentally over the seam. "For an experienced man, you haven't had anywhere near as much oral sex as you'd like. This ties in to the fact, already established, that most of your sexual assignations are short-lived. Flings, if you will. While a long-term partner would allow for the luxury of foreplay, most of your partners, perhaps sensing that the relationship would be cursory, have been determined to get straight to intercourse."

It was true that women generally preferred fucking John to sucking him, but John wasn't sure how Sherlock had come to that conclusion. "How do you figure?"

"John, look at the size of you. Not to mention the shape. What fling would be willing to settle for having you in his or her mouth?"

John groaned — partly from exasperation, and partly from the pleasure Sherlock was wreaking upon him with his fingers. The man knew how to take liberties. He had left off playing with John's sack and was stroking the cleft of his arse, taking a moment to run his thumb proprietarily over the hole.

"Is this about my oversized knob again? Shit, don't answer that. It is."

Sherlock rubbed a cheekbone against the accoutrement in question. Elsewhere, his thumb made insinuating circles. "'Oversized,' doctor? I'd say 'optimal.'"

John's face felt hot. In fact, a lot of John felt hot. Having his partner's stiff and rather stunning erection at eye level did nothing to mitigate that.

"Ungh. Optimal for what? I thought you didn't know anything about..." Sherlock's busy hands were making it hard to think.

"I don't. But people like novelty, and my memories of boarding school reveal that your dimensions are nothing if not novel. Lavish." Sherlock lowered his voice into the dark register reserved for conspiracy. "Good for getting into hard to reach places," he observed.

Given a cup of tea, John would have spat it out. Without one, he was resigned to coughing up air.

Sherlock raised a triumphant eyebrow. "More sucking?"

"Please," managed John.

Abandoning his experiments with facial frottage, Sherlock took John into his hot, wet, perfectly wicked mouth.

 _Good,_ thought John. _Glorious. Extraordinary_. Sherlock didn't have practice going for him, but he would put his tongue absolutely anywhere. John wondered how the man had survived years of chemistry experiments. He seemed like the sort of bloke who would lick the spoon. On a vessel devoid of spoons, he would lick John, and he did so with enthusiasm.

He began by lapping at the slit. John twisted his hips, anxious for more contact, and Sherlock gave it to him, suckling sweetly at the tip.

"Oh God," said John. He never wanted to be anywhere else but where he was. He would have new business cards printed up: John Watson, MD, Sherlock Holmes's mouth, constellation of Cygnus, NW 5.67 quadrillion.

John propped himself up on one elbow to watch as Sherlock's mouth moved lower. He gentled John's foreskin with his lips, moving it incrementally back and forth over the purplish head.

 _Fuuuuuck_ , thought John. Everything felt about a hundred times dirtier when Sherlock did it. John wondered why that was. Perhaps it was because he was still, in some respects, a virgin, and he set John's parthenophilia alight. Or perhaps it was because he was, hands-down, the most gorgeous person John had ever been with. With his dark curls, slim, ivory body, and pomegranate mouth, he was like something off a Greek vase – the raunchy kind, the kind one passed by a few times at the British Museum so as not to be caught staring. It was difficult to look at him and not think of sex. He was just that kind of Rorschach blot.

But mostly, John decided, it was because the man was just so damned engaged. As far as Sherlock was concerned, if something was worth doing, it was worth doing in a fit of mania and possibly while on fire. Most things were not worth doing, and he ignored them, but if he were interested in something, that one thing would command his complete attention.

What interested him at the moment was John. He displayed that interest by flickering his tongue against John's frenulum and hollowing his cheeks.

"Oh God oh God oh _God_ ," said John. He had tasted Sherlock there too. Obviously, Sherlock had liked it, because he'd committed the move to memory. John thought about Sherlock coming, thought about how he'd sounded during orgasm, and suddenly, maintaining a vigilant posture seemed like too much effort. John collapsed onto his side, offering himself up to the onslaught.

"On your back," said Sherlock, and John obeyed the order. He lay in the concavity of the jelly bed, ready for whatever Sherlock wanted to give him.

Still facing south to John's north, Sherlock climbed over him on all fours, allowing the gleaming tip of his cock to graze John's lips as he did so. John opened his mouth to take it in, but Sherlock raised his hips until he was out of reach.

" _Concentrating_ ," he said, and buried his face in John's crotch.

The position was tantalizing. Like a man tormented by the gods, John could see everything but reach nothing. He could have raised his head to suck on his partner's bits, but Sherlock's tone of voice had indicated that he was to lie back. So he did, enjoying the overhanging vista and the scent of his lover's arousal. Meanwhile, Sherlock sucked him like a man inspired.

John had sometimes felt unsure about the shape of his equipment. As Sherlock had pointed out, the difference between the girth of the head and the already ample girth of the shaft was noticeable. "Like a baby's arm holding an apple," one of his Army mates had said. All of them, come to think of it.

It was nothing he felt like having a complex over, but he had to admit that his was a dick that looked a bit out of place in the showers. It looked completely at home now. He watched, transfixed, as his slick, shining glans met the answering opulence of Sherlock's lips.

"Mother of _God_ ," said John. "How do you feel so good? Oh, fuck. You feel marvelous, Sherlock. Fantastic."

For a man who'd never given a blowjob, Sherlock was admirably suited to the task. His lips were plump and well equipped to cushion the shaft. His long throat, its Adam's apple highlighted by a cheeky, delicious mole, was an advertisement for swallowing. John had never seen anyone who looked more magnificent with a cock in his mouth.

 _And the moaning_. _Good God._ Sherlock had the temerity to moan around John's stiffness as though he were the one up to his balls in another man's welcoming body. John had the sense that his lover was not just sucking him, but tasting him. Savoring him. He had said he'd wanted to taste all of John, and he was certainly making progress.

"Talk to me," ordered Sherlock. "Tell me what it feels like."

"Gah," protested John. "What are you stopping for? Keep at it."

"Talk to me, and I will." As a gesture of good faith, Sherlock went back to doing swirly and deliriously pleasurable things with his tongue.

"Brilliant, all right? It feels brilliant. Um. When you go down on me all the way, then come back up again — unf, yeahhh, like that — it feels like sex. Not that it isn't sex, but you know. It feels like fucking." For a man who'd never had intercourse, Sherlock was doing a brilliant job of imitating it. He was all tight, wet heat and sweet, rolling undulations.

The jelly bed had its advantages. Sherlock would go down on John, and the bed would answer with a bit of recoil, forcing John deeper into his mouth. It was heaven.

"I love you," John choked out. He had meant to say, "I'm coming," but Sherlock had short-circuited his wiring for politeness and all he could speak was the truth. "Sherlock. I love you so much."

He was too small a container for the pleasure Sherlock had instilled in him. It was overflowing. He made a strangled sob as it spilled out of him and into his lover's mouth.

"Not a moment too soon," said Sherlock, having swallowed every drop. From the hallway came the unmistakable sound of squidging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter goes out with much affection to Verity Burns. Her [The Road Less Traveled](http://archiveofourown.org/works/331205/chapters/534451) was what made me want to write fan fiction again. It was, and is, smart, beautiful, poignant, romantic, and incredibly hot. Also, as anyone who's ever met her will tell you, she's just a lovely, lovely person. Happy early birthday, sweetie.
> 
> "Pomegranate mouth" and "ivory body" are taken from Oscar Wilde's poem "The Sphinx." I love the way he writes about men. Hell, I love the way he writes about everything.
> 
> Eagle-eyed reader ds862 notes that there's a restaurant near her called [XO Taste](http://unpaidgourmet.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/xo.jpg). Mmmm. That's good eating. Thanks, ds, for passing this on.


	13. Catch and Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Consent issues. Drugs. Bamboo-addled bears.

To Sherlock's mind, fending off a marauding band of giant lava lamps, each on the lookout for roughly ten milliliters of human sperm, was much like holding the Met at bay as they ineffectively ransacked one's flat for cocaine. Lots of barging in, lots of confusion, and everybody looking in the wrong place.

 _Idiots_ , thought Sherlock, as four scientists tumbled in. The scientist bringing up the rear had tripped and fallen forward, sending his colleagues undulating through the door in an unseemly – and, given the peculiarities of Keplerian anatomy, potentially orgiastic – tidal wave. Sherlock immediately christened the clumsy scientist Plum Fool. He had seen this Keplerian at the previous raid, the one that resulted in John kissing him. The scientist was brash when the situation called for hesitance, and hesitant when the situation called for brashness. It was only the fact that John was devoted to their color-based naming scheme that prevented Sherlock from calling him "Anderson."

Inspecting the pile-up on his floor, Sherlock had a strong sense of dejà-vu. _Almost_ exactly _like a drugs bust_ , he thought. The individual that Plum Fool had directly squashed seemed to be the Keplerian analogue of Sally Donovan. Not only did she dislike Sherlock immensely, but she gave the impression of having scuffed-up knees. Remarkably, the fact nature had not seen fit to equip her with joints of any kind did nothing to dull this impression. Sherlock began to think of her, rather uncharitably, as Plum Tart.

Underneath Tart was Plum Crumble, who seemed to be coming apart at the edges, and on the very bottom was Plum Duff, quivering with rage. Even under three other golden layers of gelatinous life form, it was possible to see the shouty, geometrical demands that lit up his middle. He looked like the bottom layer of an extremely angry parfait.

Sherlock's reverie was interrupted by sudden movement from Duff. He oozed out from underneath his underlings and, after taking a moment to reconstitute himself, he was vertical again. Not on his feet, obviously, but right way up on his distinctively ruffled base and headed in John's direction.

Fortunately, Sherlock had devised a devilishly clever system of signals that he could use to coach John on defense the night before. Unfortunately, he had forgot to mention them to John.

"Vatica— oh, bugger. John, get down." When John stared at him, Sherlock pushed him backwards into the deep indentation in the jelly bed. It was the motion of a gardener swatting a tulip bulb into a hole in the dirt in preparation for a harsh winter.

"The hell?" As tulip bulbs went, John was unusually cantankerous.

Sherlock didn't have to hear John sputtering to know he was fuming. He could feel him. The heat rolled off him in waves, gently toasting Sherlock's back. Sherlock steeled himself against it. As a relative newcomer to the ship, John had no idea just how many forms a blobby appendage could take, or all the uses to which it could be put. Sherlock did. It was essential that John, _his_ John, be left untouched by whatever wiggly appurtenances Plum Duff wished to extend in his direction.

"Stay down," said Sherlock. "It's for your own good." Glaring at the company with a murderous eye, he interposed himself between the intruders and his mate.

For those with an interest in audio forensics, the sounds of an annoyed army surgeon righting himself, against orders, on a blackcurrant jelly bed are as follows.

1\. Mild vulgarity, as in the sentence, "Excuse me, you complete arse, but which one of us actually has combat training?"

2\. The awkward boingulating noises, unbefitting the dignity of an officer, which typically hail from a massively soused adult who has found his way into a bouncy castle full of cake-besmeared toddlers and can't find his way out.

3\. More of item one.

4\. Rustling, but only if the surgeon in question is clothed and has not knocked his sleep covering on the floor while offering feverish love to a fellow alien abductee. These sounds distinguished themselves largely by their absence.

Sherlock struggled to keep his mind on his task. Diplomacy did not come naturally to him. Had they been back on earth, he would have let John do the talking. As the incident at Hampstead Heath proved, John played well with others. For a while, it had been clear that of the two of them, the Keplerians preferred Sherlock's mate. They would talk to Sherlock, but their shapes would sometimes wander off in John's direction. Even Plum Duff's insistence on taking him back to the lab could be read as a desire to spend more time in his company.

Unfortunately, the man had the vocabulary of a Keplerian infant. He could call their captors by name, express gratitude, say "yes" or "no," and make diligent promises to breed Sherlock with all haste. That was about it.

 _I am here for Silver Circle_ , said Plum Duff, his middle awash in polygons. _You will ambulate towards the window with your appendages in the air and leave him to me._

Sherlock made a triangle with his index fingers and thumbs, then shook it for emphasis. _No. Absolutely not._

Nothing but the constraints of Keplerian anatomical linguistics prevented him from saying, "Will I, bollocks." This was an expression he had picked up from John. John knew a lot about anatomy. Medical school had seen to that.

Sherlock was actually relieved to find Olive Hexagon, their officer contact, marching in the door. He was marshaling great platoons of geometric shapes across his middle, demanding to know what was going on.

"What's he say?" John wanted to know.

"John, not now."

"Yes, now. I can't follow."

"John, you exasperate me," said Sherlock, already tightly wound due to the stress of the negotiations. "You … you _fidget_ me beyond endurance. Look at the context! What would an officer of the law say under these circumstances?"

"I don't know! 'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then?'"

"Yes."

"What, really?"

"Yes!"

Plum Duff was already complaining to Olive Hexagon. _You know why I am here. These bipeds have produced no offspring. Silver Circle's seed is malfunctioning. Since he has not successfully planted it in the body of his mate, he will come with me now to the lab, where I will relieve him of it._

 _You will do no such thing_ , said Sherlock. He shook his finger-triangle adamantly.

Oh thought this over. _Yes_ , he signed. The umber square indicating assent slowly materialized in his center, then slowly blinked out. This looked like regret.

 _When did I start thinking of them as "he" and "she"?_ Sherlock wondered. _Right: after John started calling them that._

This was what Sherlock got for being locked up with a short, attractive man who insisted on using illogical sexed pronouns for virtually everything but the bed. It was definitive: John was colonizing his brain, annexing portions of it for his own nefarious purposes. Sherlock had let him into the Mind Palace, and now he was making himself at home. No longer content to lounge around on the mind settee, he was hanging up ugly jumpers and regrouting the shower.

 _We have been patient, Plum Cross,_ Oh continued, _but you cannot stop us in this. The breeding project requires viable material from both partners._

As much as Sherlock would have liked to interrogate Oh on the scope and purpose of the Keplerian breeding project, it was necessary first and foremost to protect his slight, bristling partner.

 _Go ahead,_ said Sherlock. _Investigate his … output if you like, but you are looking in the wrong place._ _It is not inside him._ _He does not have it._

 _Enough of your games_ , snapped Plum Duff. For a scientist, it was spectacularly slow on the uptake. _If he does not have it, where is it?_

It was extraordinary, the lack of creativity employed by the average denizen of the Milky Way. Did anyone ever, _ever_ , look behind the cow skull for the cocaine? No. Everyone always went straight to the microwave, straight to the easiest spot to check, despite the fact that Sherlock had already made it clear that that was where he kept the eyeballs, and cocaine on an eyeball was a waste of good cocaine.

"Busts," said Sherlock disgustedly, abandoning his finger shapes. "Raids. They never change. Neither do those in charge of conducting them. From one end of the galaxy to the other: morons and sub-morons, one and all."

Eyeless, the assembled scientists nonetheless stared, their geometric shapes frozen in place.

"It's here," said Sherlock. He fashioned John's signature circle from his thumb and index finger and placed it triumphantly over his stomach. This done, he tossed a quick, proud look over his shoulder at his mate.

"Ohhhh, God," muttered John, going slightly pink around the ears. He had correctly interpreted the hand gesture as indicating where the bulk of his reproductive fluids had ended up. "That's it, then. Here we go."

 _Is this true?_ Oh asked.

 _Of course it's true_ , crowed Sherlock. _Scan me. Go on, scan me. He has taken me for his own. You will find me awash in him._

 _This is foolish_ , said Plum Duff. _I am not convinced this biped even knows how his species reproduces. He is more ignorant than the pandas. It is no wonder that on their home planet, four-legged pandas sit in luxury and gluttonous contentment while their miserable two-legged servants …_

 _Your pejoratives are unnecessary_ , chided Oh. _The human cannot help his limited number of appendages any more than a polygon can grow more sides. Nor can he change his place in the social order. Are you going to complete your task or not? Scan him._

Sherlock grinned. The superior officer had just pulled rank.

Vibrating with undisguised and, thanks to its anatomy, undisguisable annoyance, Plum Duff allowed its middle to erupt forth with a new protuberance. It looked like a rotating showerhead on a flexible stalk. It slithered towards Sherlock's abdomen.

John sprang from the bed. He landed on his feet beside Sherlock like a small, furious gymnast fresh from the pommel horse. "The fuck does he think he's doing?"

"He's scanning your DNA here so that he doesn't have to scan it elsewhere," said Sherlock, pointedly. "Don't mess this up."

Umber light streamed out of Plum Duff's showerhead and onto Sherlock's bare stomach. After a moment, umber dots flowed back up the stalk and into the scientist's middle, where they coalesced into an image of a human sperm cell. The huddled analysts considered this. Next, the appendage bathed Sherlock's abdomen in an olive light. Pixels in the same shade marched resolutely up the stalk and formed an image of a chromosome on Duff's internal screen while Plum Crumble chattered with excitement. Finally, Plum Duff probed Sherlock's belly with a light that matched the color of his own crowning pentagon. This resulted in a purplish image of a double helix where the murky green chromosome had been.

Sherlock was glad the plum light had been saved for last. The color had always been flattering to his porcelain skin.

When the scientists had finished observing, the helix devolved into a fine umeboshi mist. It dispersed into the far reaches of Plum Duff's body until it could no longer be seen.

 _Well?_ asked Oh.

Sherlock had wondered what grudging admission of defeat would look like in Keplerians. Now he watched it make itself known via a slow parade of shapes across Duff's middle. These were in washed out colors and a wavering font.

 _It is as he says_ , reported Plum Duff. _He is awash in Silver Circle's mark._

"Exactly," said Sherlock, signing rapidly. "I believe you'll find John's workmanship exceedingly thorough. Now if you'll excuse us, you're interrupting the post-coital pampering that is my due as the expectant father."

"Your due as what?" John chimed in. "If there were a baby, which there isn't, we would _both_ be the expec– bloody hell. It's a lost cause, isn't it? Of course you get the pampering. Of course. For fuck's sake. Tell Oh I've created a monster."

"Excellent, John. Make a good show of it. It's more convincing that way." Mindful of his audience, Sherlock began signing in an aggrieved fashion. "You should have thought of that before you destroyed my youthful figure by rendering me gravid, you insatiable brute."

"Right, yes, you're enjoying this far too much. Tell Plum Duff to put that thing back in his pants or wherever he keeps it. I don't like him pointing it at you."

Giddy about having public proof that part of John was inside him, Sherlock gladly conveyed this, and a bit more besides.

 _My mate, who, it may interest you to know, holds the rank of hexagon on our home planet, says to put that away_ , he said.

 _Or what?_ Plum Duff wanted to know _._ Sherlock had slighted his class. His crowning pentagon quivered with annoyance.

 _Or_ , said Sherlock, recalling an earthling taunt popular in primary school, _he will put it away for you._

* * *

"Call me crazy, but I don't think you should have thwacked it like that."

From his perch on the side of the jelly bed, Sherlock yawned and stretched. "You're crazy," he droned. "It needed thwacking."

John cracked his neck. "You do know that your mouth has a tendency to write checks that I can't necessarily cash?"

"Of course you can. You can take care of yourself, remember? It stands to reason that you can also take care of me."

"Yes, well, you may not have noticed this, but I'm relatively easy to take care of. Taking care of you is a tall order. Especially if you're going to just haul off and smack random appendages because you're, I don't know, bored."

"I wasn't bored, and the appendage wasn't random. Plum Duff came in here with every intention of 'examining' you with it. Well. That will slow him down for a while."

"Honestly, Sherlock. This is not the 19th century, and I don't need you fighting duels for my honor. You don't need to go around slapping everyone in the face with a velvet glove."

"John, as far as they can tell, I'm pregnant. They think I'm out of my mind on hormones. In light of the forthcoming happy event, they _expect_ erratic behavior from me, and they expect protective rages from you. I love it!"

John rubbed his chin. "You're out of your mind, all right. What was that discussion you had with Oh at the end? You must have been at it for half an hour."

Sherlock caught his lower lip between his teeth, then released it.

"Yes. I was going to tell you about that."

"Tell me what?"

"It's about us. And him. And Ut. And, you know. Getting off this ship."

"That's wonderful!"

"Ye-ess. And no."

"What do you mean, no? What's the catch?"

Sherlock tented his long fingers.

"He has a proposal," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," Holmes tells Watson, "You fidget me beyond endurance. You, a doctor — you are enough to drive a patient into an asylum. Sit down, man, and let me have my rest!" Something about this statement makes me wild with glee. Is it the use of "fidget" as a transitive verb? Is it the idea of Watson doing pretty much anything to Holmes "beyond endurance"? Is it Holmes's reference to his invariably precarious mental state? Damned if I know, but I love that passage.
> 
> Thanks to my friend IKEA girl for inventing the word "boingulating." She uses it to describe the motion of a tangled telephone cord on a landline.


	14. Resistance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: I feel I should mention that there are not enough references to sex in this chapter. Also, there are too many references to drugs and one reference to Weetabix.

"Right," said John, incredulously. "What's he want? Advice on his wardrobe? A rugby fan to round out his team for quiz night?"

"Hardly," said Sherlock.

"Then I'm at a loss. I don't know if you've noticed this, but we're a million kilometers from home. We don't have much to bargain with. I mean, I had rather a nice RAMC mug, but I seem to have left it back at the flat."

Sherlock looked genuinely curious. "Were there _any_ hard science requirements to get into medical school when you applied? We're 600 lightyears out. That makes a million kilometers look like a stroll along Canary Wharf."

"Doesn't negate my original argument. If anything, it backs it up. If Oh's offering us a ticket home, he must want something big in return, and all we have is us." John frowned. "Jesus. _That_ better not be it."

"What?"

"No offense. I like him, I really do, but I hope he's not looking for, you know. A special night out."

Sherlock pondered his fingernails. "A night _in_ , I would have thought. More oxygen that way. Necessary for bodily movement."

"Eugh. I know this is probably lost on you, but now would be a good time to say something reassuring."

"You know, the gold in your hair _is_ very compatible with Keplerian standards of masculine beauty."

" _Sherlock_."

"Relax. Despite your personal charms, I've yet to meet a large, wobbly column of protoplasm who fancies you. I wouldn't worry about your Three Continents status getting an upgrade just yet."

"This brings us back to question A. What the hell does he want? Because I don't care who pulls strings around here. They're not getting a troop of blue-eyed, curly-headed octuplets."

Sherlock looked like a herbivore who'd just been presented with a unexpected bouquet. Pleased, wary, and not sure whether to sniff it or eat it.

 _Oh shit_ , thought John, not for the first time.

"John. You gave our prospective offspring my hair. That's …"

"Um. Sorry? Sorry." John could see he'd hit a nerve. "I didn't mean to start talking about our imaginary …"

Sherlock's voice, which had been rumbling on, trailed off. He shook his head, like a dog shaking off a dream of fields and rabbits.

"Imaginary. You were being rhetorical. Of course. Let's move on, shall we?"

John wanted to rise to the occasion, but his Y chromosome was not exactly helping. He was too male and possibly too English to be having this particular conversation this early in the day. He had no understanding of Keplerian time, but however early it was, it was clearly Too Early. In fact, it was probably a quarter 'til Too Early. They could talk about it later.

"All right," said John.

Maybe there was a flight component mixed in with his fight instinct after all.

* * *

"It's complicated," Sherlock muttered.

"I know you think I found my degree in a stale box of Weetabix, but try me."

Sherlock took in a deep breath, then let it out quickly. John felt a stab of tenderness. He'd had a sudden mental image of a teenaged Sherlock at university, blowing disgruntled smoke rings over a Bunsen burner while the rest of the students were home on Christmas break.

"Keplerian society is at a crossroads."

"Go on."

"The culture is highly stratified. For a Keplerian, work and personal life are largely dictated by rank. You'll have noticed that each Keplerian acts in accordance with the rank symbolized by his or her crowning polygon. More sides mean greater status and power."

"Of course I've bloody noticed. I was in the Army. You don't waltz around Afghanistan for two years not knowing a stripe from a star."

"And yet. In the Army, a stripe may become a star over time. It's possible to rise up the chain of command. Here, no. It's a rigid hierarchy, and Olive Hexagon finds himself chafing against it. As does Umber Triangle, our captor."

"Captor? That's a bit harsh. He's more like a friendly landlady who watches too many soaps. Or a housekeeper. A pervy one."

"Keeper, then. In both the 'house-' and 'zoo-' senses. Although the word he uses to describe himself is 'Watcher.'"

John had the distinct impression that he was trapped in a bad _Highlander_ sequel. It was either that or Middle Earth.

"Does he mean 'Watcher' as in the Tolkien whatsit with the tentacles?" he wanted to know. "Because I would have thought that was the squid thing next door. You know, the one who bangs on the wall when he wants us to pipe down."

"Toll what? Speak English. Italian, perhaps. French. Urdu. I'm not fluent in gibberish."

John took a moment to assess his lot in life.

"I'm shacked up with someone with no knowledge of Tolkien," he concluded. "Tolkien? J.R.R.? Wrote about little people. You'd love him. He'd give you a sense of importance."

"John, put your love of sensational literature to one side and focus. Our own lives and the fate of the Keplerian Resistance hang in the balance."

"Resistance?" repeated John, slipping into tactical mode. "Who's spearheading it? Olive Hexagon, it sounds like. Umber Triangle's in, I'm sure of that. Those two are a package deal. What resources do they have? What are they up against? Who else is involved?"

"Umber Triangle and Olive Hexagon. That's it. As of today, the two of them are fighting to disrupt social control."

"As of _today_. Today, mind you. I'm all for getting out of here, but I'm not sure that's the sort of long-term, reliable commitment that we ought to be risking our lives over."

"We're not going to find any other sort of commitment. Keplerians, particularly high-caste Keplerians, have trouble keeping their thoughts to themselves. How do you keep a secret when it's broadcast across your abdomen like a cola advert in Piccadilly Circus? You pretty much have to hold a sheet in front as though you're heading to do the laundry and hope for the best. Even that won't throw others off the scent for long. If a heretical idea is to be put into practice, it must be done quickly, before there's time for anyone else to stop it."

"And today's heretical idea is?"

"Sex. Ut and Oh would like to have it."

"Of course. Sex. That's all it ever is on this ship. It can't be a round of paintball or a Bond night; it's got to be sex. It's like tea back home, isn't it? Something that takes five minutes to put together and shows up at least eight times a day. Anyway, if Ut and Oh want to get an appendage over, who's stopping them? I thought Keplerians were quite liberal about sex."

"Yes and no."

"The engineering crew put on an orgy to welcome you on board. Can we put that down as a 'yes'? How about Tart copping a feel when she and Fool fell through the door just now? Because none of that looked like no."

"Keplerians are liberal about sex when it takes place between one or more members of a single caste. Tart, Fool, Crumble, Duff, and the engineering crew are all Pentagons, so they meet basic criteria for sexual melding. Umber Triangle and Olive Hexagon don't."

"Oh, right. It's all fun and games until somebody's got a pointier shape in their noggin, and then the chastity belts come out. That makes sense. Here's what I'm missing: how the hell is it anyone else's business?"

"It's _everyone's_ business. Keplerian bodies contain shapes. These shapes are what they use to think, to speak, to transmit ideas. They're what words are for us, with one major difference: these shapes are transmitted during sex. That's all well and good when you have scientists sleeping with other scientists. Their specialized knowledge and vocabulary stay within their own pool, their own caste. But what would happen if an individual were to become intimate with someone from a caste markedly different from their own? The class knowledge each individual possessed would leak out, and the castes would no longer be stable. It would be a threat to the entire social order."

"So you're saying that if I were a Keplerian janitor, say, and I slept with the Keplerian Alan Turing, I'd come away with the knowledge of how to crack Enigma."

"You might. It depends on what shapes he transferred into your body during the process. I don't think Keplerians have control over what shapes escape them during sex any more than you're in charge of which specific sperm cells to emit when I've got my mouth on you. It's random."

"Is Keplerian speech really that different from caste to caste?"

"Yes. Keplerians understand members of their own rank best. For one thing, there's the question of vocabulary. There are ideas that Ut, for example, cannot have, because he doesn't have the necessary shapes. You'll notice, for example, that there are no hexagons in his body. If Olive Hexagon were to sleep with him, Umber Triangle might very well obtain some hexagons. He'd be able to say new things, think new thoughts, perform new actions. Some of his new thoughts might be militaristic in nature."

"What's in it for Olive Hexagon?"

"Sentiment."

"He feels that? I mean, Umber Triangle strikes me as feeling it, but I never noticed it in Oh. It's not like all his shapes run over to one side, like they do with Ut."

"Oh's an officer. He's less effusive. Nevertheless, he experiences an internal vibration at a particular frequency when Umber Triangle is around. Ut feels the same way. It's apparently very pleasant. However, both parties stand to benefit linguistically and intellectually from the exchange. For example, after sex, Olive Hexagon may be able to read the thoughts of lower-ranking Keplerians with much more accuracy than ever before."

"Why can't he read them now? Vocabulary too simple?"

"No. I think it's a matter of font."

"Font."

"Yes."

"You're joking."

"I rarely joke. You'll remember that when the reinforcements came sailing in, they all spoke in a larger font than Ut does. The shapes on the center screens in their abdomens, the shapes they use to think and communicate, were physically larger than anything you'd seen before. You told me later it looked like shouting, like forceful speech. You were essentially right."

"I wish I had my phone here. I'd record you saying that and then play it back to you at 3:00 am."

"Each caste has its own font size. You'll recall that the priest, a Square, spoke in larger polygons than Ut, a Triangle. The scientifically minded Pentagons spoke in larger polygons still. Olive Hexagon had the largest communicative polygons of anyone. It's easy for those in the Triangle caste to see what the higher-ups are saying, but difficult for the higher-ups to take notice of the speech of those on the bottom."

"I see. It's like how we're able to read a billboard, but it's hard for us to read fine print. Too small."

"Very much like fine print. Even if we're physically able to read it, we often don't. Inattentional blindness. We don't think it's relevant to us, and we don't make the effort. We screen it out. Meanwhile, the Triangles are walking around with the equivalent of 20/5 vision. In human terms, they see and hear everything. They just have very little power to put the information to use."

"And those on top have power, but less access to information about conditions on the ground." John chewed his lower lip. "It's like basic training. Not that I did basic training. I came in as an officer. But it's the same principle."

"Explain."

"OK, say you've got a private and a sergeant attached to the same platoon. Who knows more about whom? Who's 100% alert to whose likes and dislikes? The private. He has to be. The sergeant can make his life hell. The private had better know what the sergeant wants before the sergeant does, or he's going to regret it. Not that sergeants are particularly subtle."

"Unless they're talking to someone who outranks them. Someone like you."

"Yeah. I suppose it's the reason you work with the homeless network when you need information. You need people who see everything. Troops on the ground. People like Ut."

Sherlock inclined his head in agreement. "The best informants are those who see without being seen themselves. A street person will notice a banker much more closely than the banker will notice the street person. Low-status individuals know much more about high-status individuals than vice-versa. Survival demands it."

"What about you?"

"What about me."

"You're not exactly homeless. You're the poshest git I ever met. You've been here for months, and you're still traipsing around in Dolce and Gabbana on the days you bother to get dressed. How is it that you see ... oh."

"What?"

"Your observational skills. You didn't pick them up at Eton." John hesitated. "Your social status. As you say, it's complicated. Your family is wealthy, with a huge social network, but you don't take advantage of it. You have trouble relating to people."

"I have trouble relating to _idiots_. If that's a failing, I'll take it."

"Didn't say it was. Speaking of which, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had a mood disorder."

"Sociopathy is a personality disorder."

"I know, and you don't have it. Mood. Some of the time you're slumped over in a stupor, some of the time you're bouncing off the walls and annoying the mollusk. You may be bipolar. I don't have anything against that, but it's stigmatized. Just like IV drug use is."

"I wasn't exclusively IV. I was flexible."

"Nevertheless. You're used to having to observe, because being able to observe is what kept you several steps ahead of the police. You got so good at it, you made it your job. Without it, you would have been locked up some time ago. Umber Triangle is like that. He sees. And if Olive Hexagon were to … team up with him, he'd see too?"

"I don't know. Neither do they. In recorded history, there's no instance of a Keplerian sleeping with someone three ranks above or below. It just isn't done. There are rumors that a tiny number of Keplerians have had dalliances with the help over the years, but there's never been a difference of more than one rank between the participants. Olive Hexagon once knew a priest who fell in love with the Watcher who was his gardener. It was a huge scandal in the Church. The two of them disappeared ages ago. Nobody's ever seen them again."

John ran an ambivalent hand through his hair. Looking for solidity, it came to rest at the back of his neck.

"So," he said. "This still doesn't explain what they want from us."

"I'm getting to that," said Sherlock. His eyes were pale and sharp. John didn't find the glint in them comforting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Um. I'm really tongue-tied over this, but [Verity Burns](http://archiveofourown.org/users/verityburns/pseuds/verityburns) has made a [beautiful podfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/691332) for one of my stories. Her podfics for her own marvelous stories were one of the things that lured me into this fandom. If you've ever heard one of them, you know how much time and care and sheer genius goes into her performances. Thank you, sweetie. I'm incredibly touched. 
> 
> You how I was saying how awesome "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" is? My husband made a digital book cover in its honor. "You know how masterful he is" is a line from Mrs. Hudson in that same story. It had me rolling on the floor the first time I heard it out loud. Hoo boy. Cracky stuff.


	15. John Makes a Discovery

"OK, I get that Triangle alien plus Hexagonal alien potentially equals super-alien," said John. "Possibly one able to manipulate the controls in the transportation room and bring an unjust society to its knees. But our _room_?"

"Obvious."

"Not to me it's not. Why do they want to use _our_ room? I mean, I'm open to that, anything for a friend, and I do think of Ut as a friend. Olive Hexagon too, I suppose. But it's not at all clear why they want it. Does the bed rotate? Is there some kind of mirror thing that comes out of the ceiling that we haven't figured out to activate yet? Don't tell me, there's something you can do with the wall sconces to make them play Barry White."

"First of all, the idea that there's anything in the room that I haven't learned how to operate is preposterous, and second, why would anyone need a mirror to have sex?" Sherlock was not even going to get into the question of Barry White.

"Some people find that, er, stimulating."

"Really," said Sherlock, marshaling up his darkest voice. It was fun to use the dark voice on his mate. John almost always licked his lips in response.

"I still don't see why they need to use our room," said John, once he had regained control of his tongue. He seemed mildly annoyed to be part of a Pavlovian saliva experiment. "They could fuck anywhere."

"Not anywhere, surely."

"Yes, anywhere. Sherlock, this whole ship is a shaggorium. Didn't you get treated to a front-row seat at an orgy your first week here? With engineers, no less? You may not realize this, but engineers are not widely considered to be the Casanovas of the professional world. If you can count on abstinence anywhere, it's usually that department."

"You're exaggerating. It's not as though there's sex all over the ship."

"Yes, there is. We were sent to a pool that you specifically told me was for tidying up after sex, and what was going on in it? More sex. Loud, thrashing, tidal wave-causing sex. There's no escaping it around here. So what makes our room the best venue for this?"

"John, what color are our walls?"

"What sort of question is that? I don't know, they're a dark … oh. _Oh._ They're opaque. Nobody else has opaque walls." Sherlock could see John mentally running through the parts of the ship that he'd glimpsed so far: cleansing pool, transportation room, infirmary, the halls, the homes of fellow zoo residents. "Why do we have opaque walls?"

"I asked for an upgrade."

"And they gave it to you."

"Yes."

"Why does that not surprise me? From everything you've told me about your life on earth, nobody has any idea how _not_ to give you things. 'Here, Sherlock, have a cut-rate flat in NW1.' 'Sherlock, take some free food in case you ever decide to eat something.' 'Sherlock, have some human ears. Go on, they're on the house.'"

Sherlock found it difficult not to feel flattered by John's rather optimistic assessment of his personal charisma. He gave a shy smile, considered how ridiculous it must look on his craggy face, then swallowed it.

"The Keplerians told me some time ago that the arrival of my mate was imminent. I parlayed that into a series of improvements for the flat. Bigger window. More extensive lighting. Better walls." Sherlock lowered his voice. "More resilient bed."

John stopped licking his upper lip and actually bit it. "The walls," he said, struggling to maintain focus. "You told them I wouldn't have sex with you with an audience."

Sherlock nodded. "I wanted to be able to conduct my experiments with plants in private. I didn't reference you specifically. I hadn't met you. I couldn't have known about your attitudes on public sex."

"For the last time, sex in a shrub on Hampstead Heath does _not_ qualify as public. Have you _seen_ the shrubs there? They're monumental. I once found a whole Tudor-style loo in one, complete with a bay window and a shingled roof."

"Did you." Sherlock was still feeling prickly about John's forays into casual romance. "How very resourceful."

John scratched his nose, pondering. "I suppose that if you're right about Keplerian culture, they don't really need walls for the same reasons we do. OK, they might use them for structure or for containment …"

"Of course I'm right. Humans use walls to create privacy. Keplerians don't. Contentious information is contained on a caste-by-caste basis, not an individual one. Barring extraordinary circumstances, someone like Ut doesn't need to hide behind walls. He's already largely concealed from those outside his caste and transparent to everyone in it."

"Right then. Ut and Oh want to use our room. I don't see a problem with that. I mean, we'll be accessories to a crime …"

"Not just any crime. Treason. That's what revolution is called if it's not successful."

"I get that. Still, it's something they want, and they should be allowed to do it. If we can offer them some protection while they … make the change, we should. Is there anything else they want?"

"Oh thinks our weapons will be of use. Also, Ut wants to us to be present for the bonding ceremony. Sentiment."

John's jaw seemed to have come loose. Sherlock waited for him to reposition it.

"Wait, wait, wait. High-speed rewind. Weapons?"

"And sentiment. Yes."

"Sherlock, what weapons?"

" _Our_ weapons," repeated Sherlock, with what was, for him, unusual patience. "Really, John. What do you think I do all day? Clean the flat? Run a feather duster over the wainscoting?"

"Clearly not," said John, his eyes darting around at the general disorder. He had often asked how it was that a man with roughly three possessions had turned the room into such a tip. "What's the plan? Are you going to bonk someone in the jelly with a floor lamp?"

"Won't work. The non-Newtonian viscosity of Keplerian jelly makes it highly resistant to stress. Under ordinary circumstances, it possesses many of the characteristics of liquid, but attacking it with any degree of force turns it solid. You've already seen Ut at his most fluid."

"Yeah," said John. "First time we kissed. There are still bits of him in the carpet."

The thought of kissing John sent a whisper of lust up the back of Sherlock's thighs.

"Correct. But when I thwacked Plum Duff, he was hard to the touch. Mind you, given our brief experiences with the MPs, I believe some Keplerians are able to change phase at will. You might hit an officer and break your hand, or you might try to land a punch and go right through him."

"Ah. Offense or defense. They can box, or they can do judo." John frowned. "What are you making weapons from? All you have is pants, a pair of trousers, and a shirt that shows off both your nipples anytime you're in direct light."

Sherlock rolled his eyes clockwise at John's description of his wardrobe. He usually rolled them counterclockwise, but it was important to mix things up now and again to keep the muscles limber. It was the same reason that he sometimes raised his right eyebrow at John, sometimes his left. He was ambi-supercilious.

"Obviously, the Keplerians are impervious to garroting, so the trousers are useless, but my shirt, which, regardless of what you're implying, is not so much flimsy as _silky_ , is imbued with dye containing several ingredients that may be toxic to Keplerian life. Their effects, if amplified…"

"Sherlock Holmes, tell me you're not going to poison the ship with your shirt."

"No! Have you been paying any attention whatsoever? This is my favorite shirt."

"What then?" said John. "Is it something in the room? The flooring? The soup? Me? The plants?"

"John, why do you persist on asking these things? First of all, you're safer not knowing, because the Keplerians will see you don't know it and they won't try to force it out of you. Second, despite my best efforts, you're likely to figure it out anyway. Unlike most people, you do figure things out."

"Thank y—"

"Eventually."

"I withdraw my thanks. Is it the soup?"

Sherlock gave his best impassive stare.

"Shit," said John. "I knew it."

Sherlock made plans to perfect a new stare. John was getting used to this one.

* * *

"A wedding. Jaysus, Mary and Joseph. We're having a wedding here. Hurry up and get dressed." John had made himself a formal toga out of his sleep covering and was bustling around the room in it, trying to clean the place up. This was typical of their varying approaches to locomotion. When stressed, John bustled. In similar circumstances, Sherlock strode around majestically. John called this "flouncing."

Sherlock languidly eased himself into his much maligned shirt. "It's not exactly a wedding. Weddings can be reversed by ritual. This will involve physical changes in both participants. It can't be reversed."

"Bonding, then." John eyed a lopsided floor lamp critically, then carted it over to the window. Then he brought over another lamp and placed it about six feet apart from the first. He seemed to be thinking of ripping his toga in half and making a matrimonial canopy with it.

"You don't need to make preparations for them," observed Sherlock. "They have everything they need."

"I know, but it's a question of respect." John positioned himself between the two lamp poles and looked out at the flickering stars. "Here. If they're OK with it, the priest can stand here."

"What priest?"

"They're not having a priest?"

"Of course not. Why would there be a priest at a public shagging? Priests don't have sex."

John rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't know what amazes me more: the things you know or the things you don't."

"Thank you."

"Not, strictly speaking, a compliment." John peered into one of the pans by the window. "Once you've got the rest of your clothes on, pick up your soup. We have guests coming. I'm not having weapons out in the open."

Sherlock snorted. "Says the soldier."

"'Says the soldier' is right. Have you ever killed anyone?"

Sherlock contemplated his landlady's late, unlamented husband, a casualty of quality detective work and the Florida state penal system. "Not directly."

"I have, and I'd just as soon avoid it going forward." John picked up a pan and shook it. "Is this salt?"

"Of course it's salt."

"You've been separating it out of our food. What's the mechanism here? How are you going to use salt as an agent of mass destruction? Add it to the water system and kill everyone with high blood pressure? Because that's a pretty slow method if you ask me."

"Not answering," muttered Sherlock, putting on his pants.

"Sorry, habit. I'm used to dealing with adults. OK. Salt is necessary to us, which is why the Keplerians have been putting it in our soup. Keeps our electrolytes balanced. However, Keplerians are mostly made out of water, right? Also, their skins are very permeable, which is what allows them to exchange shapes during sex. If you salt a creature with thin skin and a very high water content – a slug, say – they die of dehydration. You've found a way to cause death via osmosis."

"Excellent."

"Excellent but wrong?"

"No, excellent and right. You've outdone yourself."

John did not seem cheered by this. Sherlock watched as he ran a hand over their window, checking for dust.

"You've already cleaned that bit. Twice. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that I don't want you killing anyone without a good reason, and it's not at all clear what your reasons are, OK? You've been working on your salt project for weeks. Long before Ut and Oh brought up revolution. Why would …"

"You," interrupted Sherlock, pulling on his trousers.

"Me what?"

"You _you_. Do you think I've been making weapons for myself? I'm perfectly happy here. I'm making weapons for you."

"Why?"

Sherlock pulled up his zip. He was glad he'd finished getting dressed. Trousers were the key to majestic striding.

"You're my _mate,"_ he said, pacing back and forth _. "_ I have to provide for you, supply you with what you want. Even if what you want is to leave the ship, and by extension, me. Look, it's very simple. You want to go back to earth, and the Keplerian authorities want to keep you here. Therefore, I need a method of coercion at my disposal. You can't just use salt, by the way. Salt alone won't cling to Keplerian flesh. You need a base, something sticky."

"Which is why you keep taking plants out of the wall sconces," said John, slowly.

"Yes. They grow back, and in the meantime, I have my base."

John shook his head. "So you're making the Keplerian equivalent of napalm. A dangerous chemical plus something that keeps it on the body."

"I'm not planning on setting it on fire. I left my lighter in my other trousers."

"Thank heavens for small mercies. Listen, can you not do anything drastic without talking to me first? I know you think you're doing this for me, but I still think there's room for diplomacy. I don't want you going off half-cocked."

The door to their room turned transparent. There was no time to make promises. Nor was there time for Sherlock to point out that he was inevitably fully cocked.

"They're here," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The toga reference is a tip of the hat to [Infamia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/485828/chapters/846124) by thisisforyou and Mr. CSI. I wanted a gladiator!John /emperor!Sherlock story but didn't know enough about ancient Rome to write it. They did. The resulting WIP is amazing. Everything I know about Roman gladiatorial ranks – and undergarments – I've learned from that fic.


	16. Bond

John thought that Umber Triangle had never looked more radiant.

"Look at him," he said to Sherlock. "He's practically glowing."

"He _is_ glowing," said Sherlock impatiently, as John signed the happy couple's names with his fingers and welcomed them into the room. "Four hundred lumens, give or take. Oh's only at about two hundred – he's more the strong, silent type. The increase in bioluminescence is a sign that they're ready to bond."

Ut and Oh were both decorated for the occasion. In honor of his partner, Olive Hexagon had sent a garland of his internal triangles to the top of his body, where they formed an umber wreath around his crowning hexagon. Lacking internal hexagons, Ut could not reciprocate, but he had procured some olive-colored powder and dusted himself with it.

"Would you like the bed?" asked John, gesturing towards it in what he hoped was an inviting way. "Sorry, we don't really have that many places to sit."

Chairs were not a Keplerian requirement. The aliens were naturally soft, and if they bent in two, they could sit on themselves. As a human, John had no such advantage. There were times when, wanting a cozy perch by the window, he simply sat on Sherlock. Never mind that Sherlock's lap, when his pole-like limbs were arranged in the cross-legged, steeple-handed position that was a particular favorite with him, was pointy and unwelcoming, like a half-pitched tent.

"Not necessary," said Sherlock. And indeed, Ut and Oh seemed determined to make their own accommodations. Once greetings and five-ringed gratitude had been conveyed – John had to nudge Sherlock in the shin with his foot to get him to participate – the Keplerians set about building a bonding bower in the corner of the room.

The two humans sat down on the cushiony rim of their sleep nest and watched as Oh created an impromptu appendage, then gently stroked the window with it. He looked like a sea anemone on a date. The window shivered, then bent gracefully outward at his touch. Within a few minutes, Oh had created an alcove that bulged out from the side of the ship. John couldn't help but notice that it was large enough to shelter two adult Keplerians – standing up, lying down, or in a variety of amorous sprawlings.

Sherlock groaned. "I warned against the bay window. Sticks out from the side of the ship. Completely over-the-top. Bound to be noticed."

"Shhh," said John. "How's he doing that? That's amazing."

"Ship's made of the same material as the Keplerians. Oh's able to tap into the window for a moment and give it directions with his body. It's as if you had a heart transplant. Your body would tell the foreign heart what to do."

John goggled. "If he can do all that, why can't he make opaque walls?"

"If you can tell a foreign heart to beat, why can't you tell it to make toast? Oh's only wired up to give the ship certain instructions concerning mating. He's able to ask it to make a bonding area for himself and Ut. That's about it."

Oh continued to stroke the window. Under his ministrations, it visibly thickened. A rivulet of clear, viscous, colorless fluid began to flow out of it and onto the floor of the alcove. Ut bent down and patted the material. It firmed up and began to take on some of his own coloring. When he was done, it looked like an enormous mango flan.

"That'll be the bed, then," said John. He expected to get a sharp look for stating the obvious, but Sherlock inclined his woolly head in agreement.

Ut stood back, his work finished. While his center screen was blank, a number of peripheral shapes pressed themselves against the side that Olive Hexagon was on. They seemed to be quivering slightly.

John figured out how to articulate something he'd been mulling over for a while. "The shapes in the middle," he said. "Words and thoughts, yeah? I finally figured out what the other shapes are, the ones on the edges. I thought at first that they were just ones that weren't currently being used for communication. You know, extras. Reserves. They're not. They're emotions."

Sherlock waved off this suggestion with an elegant hand. "Not important."

"Really. 'Not important.'"

"Literally and figuratively peripheral. Haven't given them much thought."

John pawed his own face. It was a substitute for pawing Sherlock's.

" _How_ have you not given this much thought? Don't you want to know what they're on about? What if they're like us? You know what they say – at least half of human communication is nonverb—"

"The rubbish half," interrupted Sherlock. "Irrelevant."

"Bloody hell," said John, taking in his lover's lack of interest. It was the sort of attitude that would have driven him mad a few weeks previous, but he was beginning to get used to Sherlock. "That settles it. They're emotions, all right."

Sherlock made a noise of companionable disgruntlement. It sounded like "Mmph." John leaned against him but was too late to feel the baritone rumble go through him.

Olive Hexagon squidged around the perimeter of the donut nest. He appeared to be inspecting it for suitability as a bonding site. Umber Triangle's emotions tracked him like eyes, his edge shapes swaying nervously to-and-fro and bumping against the membrane that contained them. John held his breath.

After deep consideration, Oh flashed three umber squares across his middle and squidged into the nest. Ut went a bit melty around the edges. John, who was fast becoming the expert on Keplerian body language, correctly translated this as relief.

Sherlock read the umber squares off Oh's middle. "'Yes yes yes,'" he said.

"Rather a lot of 'yes,' then. Good thing to say at a wedding. Bodes well."

"Mmm," said Sherlock, as Ut piled into the bed next to his beloved. He seemed mildly distracted about something. Sherlock, not Ut. Ut emanated a single-mindedness of purpose that was wonderful to behold in so blobby a creature.

"What next?" asked John. "When do the other guests arrive?"

"What other guests? We're it."

The idea that nobody had come out to support the prospective bondmates struck John as fundamentally objectionable.

"Right, I know this isn't exactly legal, this thing between the two of them, but that can't have scared away _everyone_."

"It didn't. We're the only ones who know. Ut and Oh thought of the idea, Oh ran it by us, and here they are. Other Keplerians wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret. You and I can. Also, the union is societally unacceptable on a number of levels. It's not just the caste difference."

"What then? Overall body color?" In certain lights, Umber Triangle resembled a tall, wobbly pint of lager, whereas Olive Hexagon was more of a pale ale.

"Of course not. That would be moronic. No, it's the monogamy aspect. It's not at all typical for Keplerians to pair-bond. There's a ceremony for it, but it's old-fashioned and little used, and at this point in time, it's considered kinky. Deviant. It's not well regarded by the population at large."

"Pull the other one," said John.

"I can't pull the other one. I haven't bothered to pull the first."

"So you're saying Keplerians frown on insufficiently casual sex."

"Most of them, yes."

"And that's because …"

"John, what would be the public reaction if you and I were to, I don't know, cuff ourselves together at the wrists and ankles and then go to Tesco's?"

"Depends on which Tesco's it was," said John, reasonably. "Is there one in Camden? How about Soho?"

"Pick the Tesco's you grew up near. The one in Aldershot."

"Right. Well, first there would be general amazement that a posh git like you had heard of Tesco's. Then there would be astonishment that somebody of your body type actually ate."

"And then?"

"Dirty looks," conceded John. "Lots of them. And probably a few comments. People wouldn't understand it, and they don't like what they don't understand. I wouldn't necessarily understand it either."

"So you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't cuff yourself to another man and go to Tesco's."

"I would, actually. Might be a laugh. Either that, or it'd be part of some brilliant plan for flushing out a serial killer. Yeah. I'd do it. If the other bloke were you."

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Not everyone shares your sense of adventure. In any case, you understand that that level of togetherness would be viewed by most people as impractical, unseemly, unsettling – possibly even disgusting. Ut and Oh's decision to enter into a permanent bond is similarly outré. That's why it's traditional for the bonding guests to get a bit physical themselves."

"Wait, wait. Hang on. Get physical with whom, exactly?"

"Each other. Keplerian society is fairly collective in nature. A certain amount of mingling among the guests is thought to mitigate the stigma of the central pair's decision to forsake other partners."

"As in …"

"Normally, you and I would be expected to …"

"Shag each other rotten."

"Yes."

"Clearly. I should have seen that coming. We're representing Earth? We have to fuck. It's a wedding? We have to fuck. It's Tuesday? We have to fu—"

"You sound like you don't want to."

"You already know how I feel about this. I'm not going to sleep with you just because a third party says we have to, and I'm not going to fill you with sperm on a ship where everyone has an unhealthy interest in human reproduction. Not to mention a great deal of scientific prowess."

Sherlock shifted on his seat. "I could fill you."

John turned to look at him. At that moment, Ut and Oh began slapping the sides of their jelly bed with their hastily formed tentacles. The ceremony was about to begin.

* * *

"Tell me what they're saying," said John. "Tell me everything."

"Oh, God," said Sherlock. "Whatever for? 'To have and to squish.' 'Until evaporation do us part.' 'Whither thou squidgest, there also shall I squidge.' You know what matrimonial boilerplate is like."

"Would you feel that way if it were us?"

"Of course not."

"And why is that, exactly?"

"Because it would be _us_. Really, John. You walked right into that one."

"Right, then. Take this seriously."

Sherlock shot John a curious look.

"They're starting with each other's names." He nodded at the two Keplerians, who were standing up in their bed bower. "Oh can say Ut's name, because Oh's body contains umber triangles. Ut can't say Oh's name the usual way, because his body doesn't contain any hexagons. As a member of the Triangle caste, his vocabulary is sharply limited by his anatomy."

"Looks like he's found a way around that," said John. Just as Ut could make tentacles out of his jelly, he could also make a raised figure of a hexagon on what, in a human, would be his belly. He did this. Then he and Oh twined their tentacles together. It wasn't sex; it was just togetherness.

"Now come the vows. 'Membrane of my membrane, soup of my soup …'"

"You what?"

"'Soup of my soup,'" repeated Sherlock. "Do keep up."

"Right, it's like 'heart of my heart' or something. Something romantic. Don't say 'soup of my soup.'"

The Keplerians stopped what they were doing and waved one tentacle each in John's direction.

"Do you want me to translate or not?" hissed Sherlock.

"Yes. Right. Sorry. Tell them I'm sorry. Carry on."

Sherlock went back to translating. Unlike participants in a human wedding, the bonding Keplerians spoke at the same time. Ut sometimes used a simpler word where Oh would use a more flowery one, but otherwise, they mirrored each other, their internal shapes tossing and twirling in the visual dance of their language.

"'Membrane of my membrane, soup of my soup  
Sweet is your liquid, pleasing are your shapes.  
You are like the stars, varying always and never.  
Let us change and be constant together.  
I see you in four dimensions.  
I honor your puddle self …'"

"Say again?" whispered John.

"Puddle self. A Keplerian baby starts as a puddle."

"Right. Go on."

"'And your vapor self …'"

"Is that them after death?"

"Yes." Sherlock continued. "'And the firmness in between.  
Let us be who we are.  
Let us join what is already joined,  
My broth to your broth, your shapes to my shapes,  
Two bodies tuned to a single vibration.  
All that I am, I give you:  
My wetness and solidity,  
My being and my possibilities,  
All that is touched by the light and all that is not.  
I make a place inside myself to contain your refulgence.'"

John grinned. _Honestly_ , he thought. _No idea that priests officiate at weddings, but he's well up on Keplerian for 'refulgence_.'

Alert to John's merriment, Sherlock cast a reproachful eye upon him. John pursed his lips in a conciliatory way. Placated, Sherlock went on.

"'Take me into yourself, that I may also take you.  
I give myself to you in bonding.'"

"Lovely," said John. He bowed his head in the direction of the happy pair.

"You don't have to bow," said Sherlock. "This isn't grace."

"It sort of is," said John.

* * *

The post-vow part of the ceremony involved drinking. A lot. Ut, who seemed to be in charge of the mango bed, somehow produced a hard, golden sphere from its depths. The sphere, when cracked open, revealed a quantity of liquid. It was light and sweet and colorless, and it smelled like coconut water. The Keplerians and humans sat on the floor, passing the sphere around. The Keplerians drank by inserting delicate tendrils into the sphere, Sherlock sipped gravely, and John just slugged it back.

"'Welcome to London,'" said John. "Oh my God. Hilarious. Tell them that one. Go on, tell them."

 _I'm cackling_ , he thought. _Am I cackling? Do men cackle? They must do, because I'm a man, and here I am, cackling my manly arse off in the mannish manner of men._ He took a long pull off the sphere.

"Very complicated story, John," said Sherlock. His voice remained serious, but the outer corners of his eyes drew up. "I'm not sure I can do it justice."

"Well, I can," said John, and he proceeded to act it out in full, exactly as he had heard Sherlock tell it. During the performance, both Keplerians chattered excitedly. Ut bounced in place.

"Did they get it?" John asked, once the story was over. "The bit with the American tourist and the taxi? You nicking the cop's ID?" It sounded brilliant. John wished he'd been there.

"Not a word," admitted Sherlock. "But they think you're marvelous."

"I am marvelous." John felt marvelous, too. The Keplerians were also marvelous. Sherlock was most definitely marvelous.

Ut flashed a silver circle across his middle. Then he added a purple cross. They sat side-by-side in the middle of his jelly, pregnant with possibility.

"Not this again," said Sherlock. His pale cheeks were pinking up. "Not tonight," he said, signing. "We've already discussed this."

Oh flashed a warning at Ut, but Ut was undaunted. He edged the cross and circle closer.

"See, that's nice," said John. "That's the way you want to go about things: no ordering. Just asking. Right, mate. I know what you want." He did his cross-going-into-the-circle routine with his fingers. Then he took the finger-cross out of the circle and slowly, deliberately _licked it._

There was a stunned silence, and then Ut responded by emitting three new appendages and slapping the floor with them. Oh followed suit. It was the Keplerian equivalent of uproarious applause.

"How do you _do_ that?" Sherlock wanted to know.

"Do what?" said John.

"Make everyone like you."

"I don't know. I don't always. Somebody shot me, you know."

"Yes, but …"

"You don't realize, do you? I'm different when I'm around you. More alive. Stronger. They can sense it, I think. The way that I'm happy when I'm around you."

"I did wonder what you were plastered on. You do realize that was fruit juice just now."

"Yeah, well, I'm plastered on you. Do you think …"

"Yes."

"I haven't asked yet."

"Doesn't matter. I've answered."

And with that, Sherlock lowered his mouth and let John kiss him, wholly, fully, while the rest of the universe melted away around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Huge thanks to the much cherished **ancientreader** for her thoughts and suggestions on this chapter. They were enormously helpful. Any remaining errors are the result of my own intransigence.
> 
> Also, warm thanks to **snogandagrope** for creating an "XO tribute shirt" and going to 221b Con in it. Holy smokes. That took guts. And creativity. And all-around panache. **Update** : People asked to see the shirt. Snog's permitting me to link to her dropbox [here](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xf0w7k3ih5jwzex/e4ltn0Xy8p). Thanks to Snog and ProfessorFangirl and Rhyolight for being willing to share their gorgeousness. 
> 
> Finally, thanks to everyone who sent their good wishes when my town was under lockdown due to terrorist attack. I think part of the point of terrorist attack is to say, "We are not connected. We are apart." Your thoughts were a welcome contradiction.


	17. Cyclonic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Be aware, amiable reader, that this contains sex, drugs, and things that go bang in the night.

Umber Triangle and his Hexagon mate were shacked up in some kind of towering chrysalis at the far end of John and Sherlock's room. After the reception, they'd repaired to the mango bed, where Ut had used his tentacles to coax the walls of the bed up towards the ceiling. No longer a bed, it was now a shining, translucent pod. It looked like a Japanese lantern. Soft light issued from it, one color blending into another. The gentle, lumbering shapes of the bonded couple moved slowly within, like shadow puppets against a screen.

Bathed in this light, Sherlock lay on his back in the blackcurrant jelly bed. How had he got here? Oh, yes, somebody had toppled him backwards into the divot. No doubt it was the same nefarious interloper who had rid him of his trousers.

"Want," said the suspect. He wasn't difficult to spot, as he was literally on top of Sherlock. "God, Sherlock. Want you."

Sherlock panted. It was hard to think when John was muttering urgent, thrilling nonsense in his ear and pinning him to the bed with his crotch.

"In what way? Can you … _unf_ … be more specific?"

"Want you _now_ ," clarified John. "Hot in here, isn't it? Let me help you with that shirt." He raised himself up to paw at Sherlock's buttons.

It occurred to Sherlock, as John bared his upper chest to public view, that someone was trying to get a leg over. Figuratively. Literally, as a sidelong glance down the bed confirmed, the leg was already there.

Sherlock raised an incredulous eyebrow.

 _Is John trying to_ mate _with me? Roughly four meters away from a brace of Keplerians?_ (He thought the appropriate collective noun might be "brace," although on second thought, it was probably "squidge.") _What's become of his vehement refusals? His oft-enumerated inhibitions?_

_Hypothesis A: Despite all previous complaints, he wishes to honor indigenous tradition by having sex at the wedding._

_Hypothesis B: That wasn't just fruit juice._

Delicacy did not come naturally to Sherlock, but given how little he knew about sex, it seemed best to broach the subject with caution. "While I'm sure our guests … _mmpf_ … appreciate the seriousness and dedication that you bring to your role as best man … ow! What on earth?"

"Marking you." John had just pulled back one of Sherlock's lapels, found a bit of pale skin, sucked on it, and bit down.

"Gah," said Sherlock. "Whatever for?"

John rummaged around in Sherlock's half-open shirt and found one of his nipples. Sherlock gasped as he ran a casual thumb over it.

"Lets everyone know you're mine. Fends off rivals."

"John." Sherlock was surprised to find his hips undulating of their own accord. _No doubt the result of evolutionary pressures acting upon the — no. Focus._ "There aren't any other humans here. We're six hundred light-years from earth. There's hardly a queue."

There _had_ been recent mutterings from Plum Duff about pairing him off with Clive, the squid creature next door, but that was only if his relationship with John didn't "take." Apparently there were certain similarities in the DNA. Surprising, until you realized how much genetic material human beings shared with, for example, kiwis. _The fruit. The bird. Either. Both._

Sherlock hadn't mentioned Plum Duff's matchmaking ideas to John. John would go berserk.

"Can't be too careful," said John. He sucked on Sherlock's earlobe, then bit.

* * *

From a practical standpoint, Sherlock did not need to be marked. He was not an egg carton of eyeballs ( _Six dichromatic, six not; control group essential_ ) in a fridge habitually cleaned by his landlady before she'd got out of the housekeeping business. Not that he'd ever bothered to mark that.

From a sensory standpoint, Sherlock needed more marking.

John rolled Sherlock over on all fours. Although Sherlock was still wearing a shirt, he was functionally naked, because the shirt only covered bits that didn't need covering. His upper arms. His back. John had disabled the buttons. Also, he kept rucking up the fabric in order to explore Sherlock's body. He himself was still fully dressed.

It occurred to Sherlock that the wine-dark shirt was now less a piece of clothing than an eye-catching bit of dorsal flair proclaiming, "Get it here." The Savile Row tailoring had been reduced to the status of red pigmentation on the hindquarters of a baboon. Rather than concealing sexual availability, it advertised it.

John reached a hand under and stroked Sherlock's chest. His abdomen. The dark, sparse fur trailing downward. Sherlock felt the individual hairs rising as John's hand passed over him. Gooseflesh. The skin on his arms was also affected, and it hadn't even been touched.

"You're on a hair trigger, mate," said John, inspecting him. "Magnificent."

The bite on Sherlock's left scapula was a hard one. He wondered if he'd end up with a scar. It could serve as an homage to John's healed wound, the one made by the bullet that sent him home. The one that served as the flapping butterfly wing that had ruffled the hair of fate and packed him off to the Keplerian solar system to serve as Sherlock's lover. The thought was eerily romantic.

"Oh," said Sherlock, tossing his head back. "Oh, God." The shoulder bite made the backs of his thighs light up. The slip and slide of silk against the skin added an erotic charge — a frisson of pleasure to go with the slight, tingling pain.

"Like that?"

Sherlock shivered. "The biting, or what you're doing to my nipples?"

"Either one," said John. He had reached under Sherlock and was helping himself to one of the appurtenances in question. Without intending to, Sherlock rubbed himself against John's hand.

"None of this should work," Sherlock pointed out. "All right, perhaps the thing with the nipples should work. Parallel embryonic development across the sexes, nursing, oxytocin, bonding, pleasure. But what about the biting? That definitely shouldn't work. If we all wanted to get bitten, we'd have given ourselves up to marauding tigers long ago. Where's the evolutionary advantage in that?"

"Don't know. Helps you hold your partner in place? If I have the skin of your neck in my teeth, you're less likely to jerk away. Here. Try it."

 _Ungh_. This new bite was gentle but firm. He was right: under the circumstances, Sherlock really didn't want to jerk his neck. Thrashing might cause abrasion. It was better to just hold still and let John do what he wanted.

"Fast learner." Sherlock hadn't realized a chuckle could sound so dark. Given his line of work, that was saying something.

He felt a light touch on the underside of his thickening cock. It wasn't a stroke or a pumping motion. It wasn't even a caress. It was merely a touch. If it had been a kiss, it would have been a chaste peck on the lips. Nothing elaborate. He got the feeling that John was touching him there just to show that he could. He arched his body, seeking more sensation, but John withdrew his hand. It was maddening. He needed more contact.

"What do you want?" asked Sherlock. "Do you want me to blow you?"

"No."

"Hand job?" He'd picked up quite a bit of vocabulary on John's watch.

"No."

"What then?"

"Wait here, and I'll show you."

* * *

John was gone for a few moments. Still face down in the jelly, Sherlock could hear him knocking something over by the window. When he returned, he placed something on the floor. Then he seized Sherlock by the waist, pulled him backwards, and began rearranging him.

"Ungh. What are you doing back there?"

"I think you know what I'm doing."

The resulting position wasn't modest, but it was surprisingly comfortable. Sherlock's feet were on the floor, his groin was supported by the cushiony rim of the sleep nest, and his face was pressed against the bed. He couldn't help but notice that this posture offered John considerable access to his arse.

Sherlock's pale thighs were still pressed together. Rather than forcing them apart, John ran a finger down the long line where they met. It tickled. Reflexively, Sherlock spread his legs, and John got between them.

"Quite the trick," said Sherlock.

There. If one ignored the breathlessness with which it was delivered, the comment provided a certain amount of coolness and distance. It was better than saying what he was actually thinking, which was that there was a very real danger that one day he would spread his legs for John and forget how to close them. He'd end up stuck that way, like an open pair of scissors.

"Thank you," said John. He caressed Sherlock's arse, fingers dipping into the crease.

"I …"

John ran his thumb down the cleft. When he got to where he wanted to go, he stopped. A full body tremor ran through Sherlock.

"John, I don't think you're appreciating just how difficult it is for me to think, and therefore _talk_ , with your thumb there." He was completely hard now.

"Then don't think," said John, all logic. "Feel." He was making small, tight circles.

"I'm doing that but I think you should know …"

John's thumb felt suspiciously cool and slick.

"Is that my plant?" Sherlock demanded.

"It grows like mad. It'll make more. Plus, I know perfectly well this one isn't toxic. You've been putting it on scrapes for weeks. Mildly antiseptic, right?"

" _Not the point_. I was studying that."

"Keep studying." John stroked Sherlock's tightly furled hole. Not pushing in. Just rubbing.

While Sherlock was no longer in a position to examine this particular plant's medicinal properties, he was admirably placed to evaluate its lubricity.

_Findings: Good._

John pressed, still not entering. Just testing the waters.

Sherlock crossed out "Good" on his mental whiteboard and scribbled, "Phenomenal." There were other rubrics for measuring a reduction in friction, but he was damned if he could remember any of them.

"John. If you're planning to divest me of the last shreds of my virginity, there's something I need to point out."

"Go ahead."

"I'm a thrill-seeker with limited impulse control and a drug habit. You do _not_ want to put me in the position of being the one who has to practice restraint. You really don't."

"Who says…"

"You do. You've said from day one you don't want to have sex where our captors can see, you don't want your DNA floating around unsupervised on a reproductive research vessel, and you don't want to fuck me while 'jacked up on who knows what.' Yet here you are, paving the way for anal sex. Don't you see? The fruit juice, John. I think there was something wrong with the fruit juice."

There was a pause. Sherlock turned his neck, but the angle was such that he couldn't really see John's face. It was possible that the man had retained none of that speech but the word "fuck." Or "me." Or both, in that precise order.

"Really," said John. "I've got you face down on the bed with my thumb _this_ far away from being up your arse, and you're concerned about taking advantage of me?"

"Yes. As your friend, I…"

John rolled Sherlock over on his side and lay down next to him. His expression was gentle.

"I don't know who diagnosed you as a sociopath, but they must have got their diploma from an online mill based in Tijuana. You're actually concerned about this."

"You're _drunk_. You must be. You told me not three hours ago that you didn't want to fill me with sperm. My stomach, maybe – gastric acids would render your DNA irrecoverable – but not my arse. If you sober up and find out I let you do this, you'll be furious. This is a perfect storm of everything you don't want. Sex influenced by outsiders, sex with an audience, sex without a reasonable means of sperm recovery, sex while intoxica—"

"First of all, let's discuss the perfect storm of everything I _do_ want, because it's you. God, Sherlock. You're brilliant, you're beautiful, you're raving mad, and I've been cooped up with you for weeks. I don't know how much longer I can hold out. Second, I don't think our guests are very interested in us right now." John tossed his head in the direction of the small, enclosed guest suite that Ut had created for his bondmate. "They seem otherwise engrossed, if you ask me. Third, Keplerians don't lie. If they told you it was fruit juice, why would it be something else?"

"Er. Artifact of translation."

John cocked his head at this. "You mean a mistake."

"It's one explanation. Perhaps the Keplerian term 'fruit juice' also includes fermented products. Technically, grappa is fruit juice. People get utterly wrecked on that." By people, of course, he meant his normally prim brother. Visions of Mycroft performing some kind of hideous, zombiesque dance at Mummy's third wedding – the one at the Palazzo Cavalli – lurched through Sherlock's head.

"It didn't taste fermented."

"Well, then. Perhaps the fruit contains a compound that lowers inhibitions."

"Right. In mammals. From the planet Earth. Who just happened to have developed in such a way that their mental processes can be hijacked by something from a Keplerian lemonade stand. What are the chances of that?"

"Ninety-seven percent. And three-fifths."

"I suppose you're also drunk?"

"You suppose wrong. I'm sober. Distracted, physically aroused – almost painfully so – but sober. John. My career as an addict has not been distinguished by choosiness. Do you have any idea how large a dose I have to take of virtually anything before I feel it?"

John wrapped an arm around Sherlock and pulled him close. A light breath caressed the side of Sherlock's throat.

"Do you feel this?"

Sherlock shivered. "Yes."

John pressed a lingering kiss just to the left of Sherlock's Adam's apple, where the mole was.

"How about that?"

Sherlock moaned. John's mouth, in contrast to the pillowy lips of his partner, was firm and compact and sure. It had no anatomical give whatsoever, and when it was on you, you knew you were dealing with a soldier. _An officer_ , amended Sherlock. For a moment, he let his head drop back, welcoming the onslaught. Then he tensed up again. He stared at his lover point-blank.

"What else? Clearly, you can make me feel a number of things. Name them."

John twisted one of Sherlock's ringlets around his finger. When he removed his hand, the hair stayed in place, tightly curled, a replica of the finger in question. Sherlock wondered what other parts of his body might bend themselves to John's anatomy. If the man fucked him, there was the very real possibility that he'd remain internally John-shaped forever more.

"You want a list? I don't know. I want to find out. God, Sherlock. You have no idea how much I want to make you feel good, take care of you. Let me give you that."

Sherlock gave a slight nod.

John gave him a hopeful, serious look. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

John bit him on the clavicle to celebrate.

* * *

"Breathe. That's it. Breathe."

Sherlock lay sprawled face-up on the jelly bed, arms to the four compass points, his lover between his thighs. John's middle finger was inside him, gently stretching where no finger had stretched before.

"This is what it would feel like if I were prepping you," said John.

"Prepping."

 _Was that an echo? Damn it._ Sherlock's mental iPod was stuck on repeat. He interpreted this as an indicator that his cerebral blood supply had done a runner, hopped the blood-brain barrier, and headed for points south. He was flushed and panting.

"Getting you ready. If, for example, you wanted to make love."

 _Oh. Oh._ Did people actually say that? They must, because John just had. He'd said it deliberately too, looking right at him, as if daring Sherlock to say something.

Sherlock obliged.

"John. You must know that love is a form of energy, which means that in a closed system – you inside me, no others interfering – it can neither be created nor destroyed. The idea that you can make more of it is therefore scientifically suspect. First Law of Thermodyn—"

It was extraordinary how many syllables "thermodynamics" had when the speaker was gasping with a finger in him. Sherlock lost count.

John smiled. "Form of energy. You absolute lunatic. How do you reckon?"

"Not solid, not liquid, not gas. Starts with neurochemical impulses. Electric."

John ran his free hand curiously over Sherlock's body. "Where do you feel it?"

"Here." Sherlock grabbed the hand and held it against his chest. "No, not the celiac plexus. Higher." It was a peculiar sensation. It was as if something were surging out of him at sternum height. Whatever it was, it was making a beeline for John.

* * *

"You're doing really well," said John. "Relax. Let your body get used to it. I'll just rest until you're ready for more."

"More?" asked Sherlock. His voice combined enthusiasm with disbelief.

"More movement. More fingers. Or, if you like, more rest. Whatever you want."

Sherlock voted for movement. John rubbed gently at one of his inner walls, the one closest to his navel. He seemed to be looking for something. Sherlock was about to ask him if he'd misplaced his keys, when a jolt of pleasure shot through him. He cried out.

"Nice," said John. He sounded genuinely admiring, as if writhing Sherlock were every bit as incredible as Sherlock making deductions about the love triangle between the kelp-creatures down the hall.

Sherlock wondered if he was going to come like this.

"Not sure," said John. "It would be amazing if you did. Most men can't, is what I hear. They may like it well enough, but it's hard for them to get off unless someone's touching their cocks. Most men."

"And your past lovers?" It was galling to think of John in bed with anyone else, but Sherlock wanted to know where he stood. Or lay, as the case may be.

"I've only been with the one bloke before you. He didn't let me anywhere near his arse. Said I'd do more good up front."

"He was an idiot," said Sherlock. "Do that again."

"Of course, you're not most men," said John. He stroked as he talked. Once he had determined the spot that made Sherlock arch and buck the hardest, he didn't stray from it. He courted it. "You're physically … sensitive. See things other people don't see. Hear things other people don't hear. All of your senses are a bit amped up. No wonder you're so responsive in bed."

John punctuated this observation with a particularly maddening swipe of his finger. Sherlock thrashed so hard he nearly dislodged it.

"Ungh," he said. "Is it supposed to feel like this?"

"I don't know. How does it feel?"

"Like I'm having an orgasm. A heart attack. Possibly a baby. Keep going." It was a strange sensation, somewhere between irresistible ache and blistering relief. Sherlock wanted to try it on John to see if there were similar results. He would, too, just as soon as he could sit up.

"It's supposed to feel like that for some people – just one continuous orgasm. Lucky bastard." John continued rubbing. He'd already figured out where Sherlock wanted to be touched, and now he was working out _how_. A variation in rhythm made Sherlock gasp.

"Has anyone done this to you?" he managed.

"Fingerfucked me on a jelly bed?" asked John. "No. There were opportunities in med school, but no."

"Could you do that to me with your penis? Hypothetically speaking."

"Er, not exactly like this. My cock's a lot larger than my finger. The place I'm touching is only a couple of inches in. I'd have to fuck you pretty shallowly to hit it."

Sherlock rocked his hips experimentally. "What happens if you press harder?"

John tried it. Sherlock tossed his head from side to side and moaned. A bit of pearly fluid trickled out of his cock and onto his stomach.

"Sorry, should have warned you. Prostate's full of semen. Pressing on it is like pressing on one end of a water balloon. The fluid's got to go somewhere. Doesn't mean you're actually coming. Yet."

Sherlock groaned. "Give me two more fingers. No, three."

"Two," said John, firmly, and he worked more of his hand into Sherlock.

" _Unf_. The spangly bits. You know, in the botanical material you've so … _ahh_ … generously stuffed me with? I can … _ungh_ … feel them."

"What do you mean, you can feel them?"

"They fizz." The sensation was not unlike the one encountered when resting one's cheek on a glass of champagne, only somewhere much more intimate. Sherlock could feel the tiny spangles popping inside him.

"Sorry. Does it hurt?"

John went to remove his hand. Sherlock grabbed him by the wrist and held it in place.

"No. Definitely not. Can you … oh. _Oh_."

"That's it. Show me what you need. Move for me, love."

"John. John, please. I'm going to …"

And he did, without so much as a hand on his erection. The only hand was _in_ , not on. He hadn't known he could come like that, but his body knew, and it steered him directly into the path of the spiraling, tempestuous pleasure. He gave himself up to it, and it took hold of him and bore him up like a cyclone. 

He tossed and turned on the currents of John’s love for him until they brought him gently to ground in a field of unvoiced murmurings. His mate, whose chin was now pressed up against Sherlock’s shoulder, was engaged in the secretive and extremely John-ish activity of saying something without moving his lips. Sherlock could feel his jaw move. He'd just picked out “I’d like that” when an explosion came roaring out of the far corner of the room, and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, that was longer than I meant it to be, but it was time for a sex scene. And I hate to cut a sex scene in two. Honestly. That’s just bad manners. I’ll let you know when I find the Emily Post reference for this.


	18. Chrysalis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for sentient lava lamps going at it. Welcome to the weekend!

The reception for the bonding ceremony had just concluded. Seated next to his officer love, Ut urged the walls of the mating nest up towards the ceiling. These inclined towards each other, then closed above their heads, like the petals of a Cybellian tulip blooming in reverse.

It was cozy in the nest. The bed was soft and smooth, and the interior of the pod was lit with the glow emanating from two amorous Keplerians. Ut let the golden-olive light from his partner wash over him. Soon they would be joined. Ut had never wanted anything more.

Oh gazed fondly at Ut, then began to whisper sweet nothings. These began with the appearance of an umber triangle, glowing and perfect, in his soldierly middle. A stout olive hexagon sidled up to it. The triangle representing Ut bobbed up and down twice, then made a home for itself inside its hexagonal companion. Although the individual sides of the two shapes remained independent, three of their points overlapped perfectly. It was a metaphor for how they were: separate but connected. Oh spun the combined shapes around in a dance of giddy tenderness.

"My bondling," he said. "My only. My own."

"Your speech is beautiful," said Ut. He inclined his crowning polygon towards his mate. "I cannot imagine being able to speak as you do."

"Your speech is a marvel. So compact. So passionate. With your small print, you can say many things at once. I can say only a few things, and then I have to refresh the screen."

Ut flashed five grateful circles. Still, he could not help but ponder what a boon it would have been to be able to speak his intended's name – fully, properly – during the ceremony. Of course, this thought was immediately broadcast across his midriff.

"You spoke it," said Oh, firmly. He reached out an appendage and stroked Ut with it. "You spoke it as no one has ever spoken it before. You decorated your body with it. My commonplace name – you wore it like an ornament."

Despite his more extensive vocabulary, Oh appeared to have run out of words. He wrapped his appendage around Ut and drew him closer. Ut's peripheral shapes hurried towards him as the light in a plasma globe rushes towards the one who touches it. Oh's did the same.

"You would not wish me to change?" asked Ut. It was a bit late to ask, but he wanted to know.

"You are magnificent as you are. If you wish to have hexagons as part of your vocabulary, I wish that for you too. Perhaps some of mine will enter you as we join. If so, my shapes will be fortunate to find a home in you. If not, it will not matter. We will be one, regardless of what our shapes say."

"You are romantic for one of your occupation," teased Ut. Lacking internal hexagons, he could not say "soldier."

"It is your influence. I am picking things up from you. What about you? Do you wish for me to change?"

"What? No."

"There is an operation," said Oh, hesitantly. "Available on one of the moons of Beroth. A Hexagon can get his crowning polygon filed down. I could become a Triangle, like you. You would not have to worry about…"

"Never. If it is not something you wish, how would I wish it? I have fallen for you as you are."

There was a noise from outside the pod. Ut touched an appendage to the side of the pod to see what Silver Circle and Plum Cross were up to. The papery skin of the pod turned clear where he touched it. Ut peered outside, then turned purple about the middle and hastily dropped his appendage. The clear patch returned to its former translucence.

"Someone has a fetish," teased Oh, checking out Ut's blushing belly.

"It is a medical condition," replied Ut, defensively.

"There now," said Oh. "I did not mean to make you feel bashful. I am thankful for your difference. Had the aliens' canoodling not caused you to dissolve into a puddle on the day that we met, I would never have noticed you. I was not used to focusing on so small and delicate a font."

"Hmpf," said Ut. "I noticed _you_."

"Me? Not the priest, or the scientists? It is the nature of a Watcher to notice everything, is it not?"

"Only you. It was kind of you to squidge me back to my quarters afterwards."

"It was a way of being assured of your company. How are our four-appendaged friends, by the way?"

"They are up to five appendages each," confided Ut. He had often observed that the two aliens changed shape under each other's influence. Things that did not look like appendages while flaccid ended up looking very appendage-y indeed when they were sizing each other up for mating.

"It is sad for them," said the soldier. "They do not have access to multiple partners. They have no choice but to be a couple."

"We have no choice but to be a couple either," said Ut. "No one else interests me. There is only you."

"Yes, but for us, couplehood is the best outcome. It is what we want. There are other Keplerians on board, but you are the one I long for. The aliens are the only members of their kind on the ship."

"I do not believe it would matter if they were among their own. They would still look to each other. They may not have chosen these circumstances, but they are bondmates, like us. They are meant to be together."

Now it was Oh's turn to touch a tentacle to the inside of the pod and peep outside. After a moment, he dropped his tentacle. "I cannot figure them out," he said.

"What confuses you?"

"The pale one. He glows. He glows all the time. His appendages, his membrane, the spheres he uses to see with. Everything glows. You would think that so much mating would satisfy him and his light would subside, but it does not."

"Tell me more of mating," said Ut, coyly.

"I will do more than tell you. Bondling, with your permission, I will show you."

"Permission granted, cherished one."

* * *

The sex was slow and sweet and, thanks to a peculiarity of Keplerian anatomy, quite literally delicious.

It began not with penetration, but with gentle pressure. Oh edged closer to Ut in the mating nest, then pressed his body against him. Ut could taste him. He tasted like liquor distilled from stars.

"Is this all right?"

"It is more than all right," said Ut. "It is pleasing." He shivered. The resulting ripples caused a responding wave in Oh's jelly at the place where their membranes touched.

"Ah," said Oh. "I can feel your vibration. It is slow. Sultry. Luxurious."

"I have never thought of it that way. It is practical. Good for lulling puddle-children to sleep."

"I do not feel lulled," said Oh. "Here. Feel me."

Ut focused on Oh's internal vibration.

"It stirs me," said Ut. "It reminds me of you galloping." He remembered how his partner had looked on that first day, the day that the aliens had mated with tongues. He was strong and fast, and his golden body was sleek and glossy and radiant with health.

They took turns tuning their bodies to the other's vibrations – one slow and longing, and the other quick and desirous. Eventually they were switching back and forth with such fluidity and verve that the vibrations became music. It was a symphony only discernible by touch.

"Ah!" said Ut.

"What? Does it tickle?"

"No."

"It does not tickle me either," said Oh. "Sweet one…"

Ut had made up his mind. "I am ready," he said. "Come into me."

Oh seemed suddenly shy and hesitant. Some of his peripheral shapes went behind his back, as though hiding. This was to no avail, as he was completely transparent.

"What is it?" asked Ut. "Do you not want this?"

"It would please me," managed Oh, "if you would come into me first."

"Merciful Meg," said Ut. This was short for Megagon. The full name of the Keplerian über-deity could not be spoken outright, because nobody had a linguistic polygon up to the task. "Yes, my shining one. Yes."

Ut fashioned a new appendage for himself. Normal, everyday appendages tended to be fashioned from side material, but this one was special. It emanated from his core, from the place where his thoughts and words and dreams arose. Let others enter their partners with the same appendages they used for cleaning the floor; he would not. This was not a quick grope while tidying up the hall. This was bonding for life.

"Here," said Oh. "Do it here." He made a divot in the center of his body, at the place closest to his own linguistic screen. It was the heart of him.

Ut entered him. Finding himself taken, Oh froze, then cried out in pleasure. The sight of his partner in rapture caused an indentation to form under Ut's central appendage. Oh immediately filled it with a new appendage of his own. They were now inside each other.

"Bondling," gasped Oh. "Do you like it?"

As a Keplerian, Ut could speak only the truth. "Nothing has ever felt so good. Ah! What is that?"

"Do not worry. It is right." Oh seemed to be having trouble talking. Many of his inner polygons had fled for the periphery, where they tumbled in an agony of delight. "The membrane. It breaks down."

"Yours or mine?"

"Both. We are joining."

Ut looked at the points where their bodies met. He could see a thin stream of his liquid flowing into Oh's body. It was lighter in color and more luminous. Meanwhile, Oh's darker, richer liquid flowed into him like syrup.

Ut had never seen anything like this before, because he'd never seen members of separate castes having sex. All Triangles were the same color, and when they engaged in relations with each other, the liquid they exchanged was identical. It didn't stand out. In contrast, sex between a Triangle and a Hexagon was about as subtle as a dish of Fudge Ripple. It left a mark.

"Ah!" gasped Ut. He had not thought it would be possible to be more turned on, but seeing his lover's issue inside him did the trick. The fact that he could also taste it was a glorious lagniappe.

"Umber Triangle," said Oh. It was all he was capable of saying for the moment. The relevant polygon appeared at the center of his being and stayed there. His body was slick and trembling. It was likely that he was close to the final melding, the one that would involve an exchange of shapes.

In the midst of this embrace, Ut had an epiphany.

Perhaps there was a way to say "Olive Hexagon" without possessing the relevant shape. He had managed it before by making a sort of hexagonal appendage, but that had been something on the surface. This would be at the core of him, where it should be.

Nervously, he summoned six olive triangles into his middle, then arranged them in a ring so that their apices were pointing outwards. Circumscribed in the middle was a blank space in the form of a hexagon. The emptiness at the center was like an ache.

On the outside of his body, his emotions twirled and beckoned. They bumped against his membrane, begging, welcoming, asking for completion.

"Ah!" said Olive Hexagon.

And then Ut felt it: his lover's shapes bubbling into him. At first, they were tiny. This was natural and healthy. Under normal conditions, only the smallest shapes were transmissible during sex, so as to protect the recipient from rupture. However, once they were successfully implanted inside a partner, they grew. This is what they were doing inside Ut now.

Oh seemed to be undergoing the same transformation. Tiny polygons were leaving Ut and entering him. The two of them clung to each other in ecstasy.

"What have you planted inside me?" gasped Oh, once he could talk. His emotions were doing un-soldierly undulations around the periphery of his body. "I feel your – ah! – your shapes moving in me, but I cannot tell what they are." He could have simply looked, but this would have required pulling back slightly from Ut, something he was loath to do.

Ut focused on a shape just as it blossomed into its larger form, spreading out like a firework.

"A square, my sweet one," he said. "Umber in color. Several plum triangles. Three more triangles – olive. What have you given me?"

It would not do to hope for too much. Whatever Oh gave him would be welcome.

"A square," said Oh. "It is olive. A lot of squares, actually. All the colors. Ah! I had not expected that."

"Yes?" Ut's peripheral shapes twirled eagerly.

"It is a pentagon. A plum one."

"Ah," said Ut.

"It is perhaps not what you wanted," said Oh.

"Well. I can talk about scientists now. I can scarcely believe it." Ut tried not to feel disappointed.

"We can try again," said Oh. The two of them were still locked in an embrace. "Sometimes an additional mating leads to other shapes."

"That is true," said Ut. They both knew this rarely happened, but it wasn't out of the question. "Pay no attention to me, cherished one. I am being foolish."

"You are not foolish."

"I am. You are the sun and both the moons to me, and I had hoped to become able to say your name through bonding. It is a beautiful name. I would have been honored to have it inside me. It makes me happy when you call me, and it would have pleased me to give you that same happiness. But it is not necessary."

"No. It is not necessary," Oh agreed. "It … oh."

"What?"

"There," said Oh. "There it is. I see it."

Umber Triangle pulled back a bit and saw it too. A small hexagon in his midriff.

"Meg and all her Myriagons," said Ut.

The tiny hexagon swam to the center of Ut's communicative screen, where the hexagonal space circumscribed by triangles was.

"Ah!"

"It is getting bigger."

"It certainly is," managed Ut. He was talking in subtitles so as not to disturb the drama unfolding in the center of his screen.

"It is olive."

"It feels olive," said Ut. The hexagon was growing rapidly now, spreading out in the space available to it.

"Umber Triangle. My only. My own."

"Olive Hexagon," cried Ut. "Olive Hexagon. Ah! Oh! I can say it!"

Words were flooding into him. He could say a thousand things he'd never been able to say before. He could think things he'd never dreamed of.

"My soldier. My officer. My bondling. My love."

There was pleasure, more pleasure than he'd ever known. He was racked with it. It circled out of him and into his partner, then back again in a loop of ecstasy and desire. They were two. They were one. They were singular. They were binary. They were bound together in quivering and gelatinous love.

Then light shot out of the center of Ut's body, and the attendant shockwave tore the chrysalis in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A happy early birthday to my friend **afrogeekgoddess** , extraordinary poet and evolved soul.
> 
> Also, thanks to dear **KeeblerMC** for catching a typo. And to **ancientreader** and **meganbobness** for inspiration and general prodding.


	19. In Which John Gets Busy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still rated M for men going at it. Also, somebody's jiggly butt gets kicked. I won't say whose.

"That's it," said John, ignoring the Keplerian honeymoon festivities in progress in the far corner of the room. His mouth was dry, and something was making an unseemly racket in his chest. "Show me what you need. Move for me, love."

He was two fingers deep in his writhing boyfriend, and he wished he were deeper than that.

Sherlock was Scheherazade armed with a tinderbox and a warehouse full of solvents. He had 1,001 ways of setting John's nerves on fire. First, there was the scent of him: heady, promising, enough to lead anyone down dark alleyways and beyond. Next, there was the scarlet trail lust painted down his body, highlighting the areas where the skin was thin and ready – his lips, his chest, his twitching cock. Somewhere in the mix was the way he clamped his eyes shut, as though nothing but the fingers moving inside him could possibly be relevant.

When Sherlock grabbed John by the wrist and started pleasuring himself with the attached hand, John had never been more certain that his heart would stop. _All right_ , he conceded, _maybe that time I got shot_ , but even that seemed like a toss-up.

Desire wrung the sweat from both men, making them shine like all things dangerous. Taking in his partner's glossiness, John saw an Afghan mountaintop, the uncloaked moon, the barrel of a loaded gun.

Sherlock was already beautiful, but John flattered himself that, by giving him pleasure, he was putting the finishing touches on the man's magnificence. Without penetration, Sherlock was static, collected, in charge of his wits. With it, he gleamed and tossed and cried out under the peach-gold lamplight. Watching his lover grapple with encroaching bliss, John felt invincible, transported. He telegraphed what he was feeling back to Sherlock with slick, steady fingers. They were lost in a feedback loop of exponentially increasing desire.

"John." Never before had the short, guttural name seemed so perfectly handcrafted for the purpose of moaning. "John, please. I'm going to …"

Gasping, Sherlock threw his limbs every which way, as though trying to jettison all ballast not required for orgasm. His climax, when it arrived, manifested itself all over his trembling body. Ecstasy urged his lips apart and animated his carotid artery, making it throb under the tender skin of his exposed throat. It made wild hips shudder and long legs dance. Surrendering himself, Sherlock arched and bucked against John's hand, holding back nothing.

Afterwards, he was a tottery-winged angel fallen to earth. The sex flush dissipated quickly. Fondly, John noticed that Sherlock held the unusual and possibly medically significant distinction of being paler than his own ejaculate. He made mental note to talk to him about anemia.

John withdrew his fingers. Silently, he lay down next to Sherlock and rested his chin on his lover's shoulder. Contentment had smoothed out the crinkles in the corners of Sherlock's closed eyes.

 _If I wanted you_ , thought John, feeling out the words so that they would be halfway coherent when he finally got around to saying them. _If I wanted to take you and have you. Fully. In every way two extraordinarily resourceful men could come up with. Ways that were … Good and ways that were a Bit Not. Does that sound like something you'd be OK with? Because I'd quite like that._

* * *

Pressed against his lover, John didn't see the explosion rip through the mating pod in the far corner of the room. All he registered in the instant before the bed gave way, slamming them onto the floor, was Sherlock's face, lit up as though by ten thousand suns.

* * *

"Sherlock." John's frantic heart beat against his ribs like a bird flapping wings against a cage. "Wake up. Do you hear me? Wake up."

He shook his companion's pointy shoulders. No response. He stared down the length of his body, looking for signs of motion in the chest.

_Breathe, for Christ's sake. Breathe._

Pressing his face close to Sherlock's, he felt a stutter of air against his cheek. Elation. Joy. Christmas morning. The man was out cold, but he was breathing. That was something, at least.

John looked around. The Keplerians were just beginning to stir in their cocoon. Sherlock had suspected that their non-Newtonian fluids would be highly resistant to force, and this was apparently true. Despite the explosion, they were not vaporized or incinerated or hanging from the lamppost in shreds. If anything, they seemed more solid than usual. It was impeding their movement and slowing them down.

Unlike the Keplerians, Sherlock had a distinctly Newtonian skull, and it was unlikely to be improved by trauma. John put a hand to his clammy forehead. A bit of pressure there, a few fingers under the jaw there, and the shaggy head was tilted back. A quick lift of Sherlock's eyelids revealed pupils like pinpricks. Gingerly, John palpated his head and neck, then cursed. Inwardly at first, then out loud for good measure. His patient had taken a blow to the back of the head.

There were no obvious lacerations, but the unconsciousness was troubling, and the man was going to be one big, purple bruise when he got up. He was, after all, going to get up. That was not open to question. If the universe tried anything to the contrary, John Watson would make it very, very sorry.

He was checking his partner's mouth for blood and drainage when he felt a tentacle on his shoulder. It was Umber Triangle. His peripheral shapes wheeled with concern.

"No," said John. "Not me. _Him_. Help him."

Umber Triangle patted John, apparently looking for damage. John shook his head. It was a near-futile gesture, as there was no reason to believe the Keplerians had any expertise in British body language. What was the word for "no"? He remembered Sherlock signing quite a few triangles at Plum Duff when he wanted John to take the scientist's place as Sperm Collector General. It had worked. Plum Duff had squidged off in a huff.

Taking a deep breath, John signed a triangle for "no." Then he signed a cross for Sherlock.

_Forget me. Stop this. Look after my mate._

Umber Triangle stopped patting. Olive Hexagon sidled up next to him. He was liberally smudged with Ut's decorative olive powder. So, at this point, was John.

There was a hexagonal light in the middle of Ut's communicative screen. It glowed like dying embers.

_Fuck. That's new._

It had not escaped John's notice that the bed had been slashed in two by a hexagonal tunnel, or that a hexagonal hole, which was collapsing in on itself, had been blasted through the self-repairing wall. These things didn't seem like coincidence. It was as if a laser had shot out of Ut's body and cut six-sided shapes in everything it had encountered.

How had this happened? Was it intentional? John couldn't believe that Ut would send out a destructive beam on purpose. It had to have been an accident.

Whatever power had been unleashed, John was glad it had not been pointed towards the window. Both humans were very fond of oxygen.

"Look. I can't communicate. He's the chatty one, right?" John winced at the inadequate description of what, exactly, Sherlock was, but it was the best he could do while fending off panic. "And he's out cold."

He lifted Sherlock's hand a few inches to demonstrate, then let it go. It fell to the floor.

Ut slumped backward as if shoved. A cloud of peripheral shapes sank to the bottom of his body in despair. Oh pressed against his bridegroom, trying to console him.

"No," insisted John, signing another triangle and a lot of gibberish besides. "Absolutely not. Not dead. _Sick_. The fucker wouldn't _dare_ die on me. Doctors. Can you get doctors?" Overlapping his thumbs and making a point with his index fingers, he made a rough approximation of a pentagon. "Not just random scientists, but people specializing in medicine. Xenobiologists. Brain specialists. Get me veterinarians if you have to. I can check him out, but there are things I can't do, not without equipment or meds. Please. I know you can't understand this, but on the off chance that you can? Run. Squidge. Go. Get help."

John wriggled his fingers in the direction of the door. The last time he'd made that gesture, Sherlock had declared the resulting suggestion filthy. Nevertheless, Ut had understood John's meaning then, and he seemed to understand it now. He spoke a few polygonal words to his beloved. Shuffling into action, Oh poked the area above the pale yellow door with a sturdy tentacle. It turned transparent.

Ut was about to head out when inspiration struck. He stroked an indentation in the wall, and out popped a small, clear sphere. He let it fall, then nudged it with his bulk so that it rolled along the floor towards John. Immediately afterwards, he and Oh left. As the door closed behind them, John couldn't help but notice that while most of the Watcher's peripheral shapes were angled towards his new partner, a few were angled towards the small pile of humans on the floor.

* * *

Once he'd come to the conclusion that Sherlock's spine was all right, John rolled him over on one side. He was less likely to choke on his own saliva that way. John lay down behind him and wrapped an arm around him. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it allowed him to feel Sherlock's heart beating against his fingertips. Knowing that Sherlock was alive outweighed comfort.

* * *

After about fifteen minutes of spooning and surveillance, John noticed his arm had gone numb. Sherlock seemed stable, though unconscious. Still keeping an eye on him, John got up and bounced the small sphere off his knee, football-style.

"The hell am I supposed to do with this?"

Talking to Sherlock, even when he was motionless, felt companionable. Plus, there was always the hope that he was going to pop back up and chastise John for his ignorance.

* * *

The lights in the wall sconces were going on and off. Why were they going on and off?

 _Alarm_ , decided John. It was not at all clear that the Keplerians could hear. Perhaps their alarm system was visual.

"If you revert to your vapor self," reported John, "I will kick your vapor arse."

* * *

Two Keplerian scientists bustled into the room.

"Fuck's sake," said John, cradling Sherlock. "Took you long enough." Next time he would phone 999 and take his chances with the London traffic.

One of the scientists tripped over a light pole and managed to impale himself with it. It took a moment for him to reconstitute himself in whole form.

"Right. Plum Fool. Beggars can't be choosers. Who's that with you, Plum Tart? It figures. Help me get him to the infirmary."

If nothing else, Plum Fool and his colleague could open the door to the cell. Opening doors on an alien starship wasn't something John was good at. For one thing, the ship didn't recognize his touch as Keplerian, and for another, he was too short to poke the necessary spot on the wall.

Plum Fool created a tentacle for himself. It was thin and pointy on the end, like a syringe. This did not inspire confidence.

"Be careful where you point that thi—" protested John, wrapping Sherlock more tightly in his arms. Then Plum Fool jabbed him, and he was out like a light.

* * *

When he woke up, Sherlock was gone. John didn't think he could get out of the cell, but he slammed himself against the door eight times just in case. Then he hurled himself against the wall they shared with the tentacle creature next door and howled his loss.

"Is he in there? They better not have dumped him in there." John knew perfectly well that the tentacle creature was a single tenant in a double room, and it would be just like Plum Fool to drop Sherlock wherever it was convenient and then squidge off.

The tentacle creature banged on the wall in an aggrieved fashion.

"No, I won't pipe down. You pipe down. Is he in there? He better not be, is all I'm saying. If you put a hand anywhere near him, I'll rip it off." This made no sense on at least two counts, including (a) "Neighbor speaks no human languages of any kind" and (b) "Neighbor lacks hands," but it made John feel better to say it.

* * *

John tried stabbing the door with a floor lamp. It didn't budge. He scooped some plant goo out of a wall sconce, rolled it into a ball, and lobbed it at the spot on the wall that Oh had touched to get the door open. Perhaps the ship would recognize the plant matter as a Keplerian life form and grant it clearance to open the door. It didn't. He tried poking the wall in the spot where the hexagonal hole had been some minutes before. It had completely closed up. He looked around for some method of setting the room on fire. There wasn't any.

John tossed Ut's small sphere from one hand to another until it surprised him by popping open. Inside was clear goo. Cautiously, he pressed a small blob of it to his upper lip. It cured his chapping problem, but other than that, nothing seemed to happen.

Options exhausted, he sat in the bonding pod vacated by the two Keplerians and stared out at the stars. It occurred to him that the purpose of the sphere was medicinal. Ut had given it to him to treat Sherlock with, and he'd utterly muffed it.

"Fucking buggery fuck," he said. His neighbor banged on the wall as if in agreement.

* * *

It was Plum Triangle's first day on the job. His introductory assignment was to look after the biped in 221 Dodecahedron. Management had informed him that there used to be two bipeds in that cell, but now there was only one. While two bipeds could be feisty, a single biped was essentially harmless. All in all, Plum Triangle had lucked out.

The remaining biped sat on the edge of a Keplerian bonding bed. It kicked its lower appendages glumly and did not look up.

"Soup time," said Plum Triangle, cheerily. There was little hope of the creature understanding, but that was no reason not to extend a bit of friendliness its way. He wasn't one of those Watchers who believed that all alien life forms were inferior. Some of them were probably very nice. Possibly even intelligent. He'd only ever met two, both belonging to a species of gigantic boll weevil, so he wasn't entirely sure.

He set down his pan of soup against one wall, making sure not to come in contact with the liquid itself. During orientation, he'd been briefed on the fact that bipeds required toxic salts in order to live. Although the soup that served as Biped Chow contained these only in small amounts, it was best to be careful.

Plum Triangle didn't rush over to the biped or crowd it. Better to let it come to him. It would be more tractable if not threatened.

"Silver Circle?" In the event that the creature had come to associate its name with food rewards, displaying it would get its attention and establish rapport. "Come and eat. It is your favorite."

He had no idea whether this particular soup was the biped's favorite or not, but his supervisor had been emphatic that feeding was an essential part of the job. A little marketing couldn't hurt.

Listlessly, the creature wandered over towards the soup and sat down. To its new keeper's great shock, it made a half-hearted triangle with the small tentacles coming off its upper appendages.

"Was that a greeting?" Plum Triangle felt his peripheral polygons twirl in amazement. "You are a clever one. I had heard …" He stopped there. There was no use in pointing out that he had heard that the clever one was Plum Cross. If the creature knew its mate's name, the mere mention of it might plunge him further into his sorrow. Animals separated from their mates were notoriously stubborn. It was often difficult to get them to take in nourishing fluids of any kind.

"Yum yum," said Plum Triangle, pantomiming sticking a tentacle into the soup. "Heavens to Meg. So tasty." This sometimes worked with small Keplerians fresh out of puddlehood. While not specifically recommended as a feeding tactic for bipeds, it was worth a shot.

Warily, the biped lifted the soup and drank. Apparently liking the taste, it drank more.

"Good!" The creature finished its soup. Plum Triangle felt the satisfying tingle of a job well done. There wasn't much to this caring lark.

At least, that's what he thought right up until the creature fell over, thrashing and gurgling and emitting fluids from its crowning area.

* * *

This much was clear: Ut's replacement was an idiot. It was what one expected from Watchers in general, of course, but this new minder surpassed all expectations.

"What is wrong with this biped?" demanded Plum Duff. His ruffle quivered with annoyance.

"I do not know," said the minder. "It ate, then fell over. There must have been something in its food."

It was infuriating having to deal with Watchers. Everything they said was in such tiny print. Duff strained something every time he had to read their screens.

"You were foolish to summon me. I am no longer responsible for the bipeds."

"I am sorry. I heard …" The minder seemed to realize he was about to say something impolitic, and went silent.

"I will have you know that my removal from the biped study constituted a _promotion_ ," said Duff, frostily. "I have been entrusted with a very important study of insects from the Beryllium quadrant." It went without saying that animals that went about on six appendages outranked animals that went about on two, even if they _were_ prone to ejecting venom at inconvenient times.

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir. What shall I do with the biped, sir?"

Duff's response was unequivocal. "Trash pick-up is tomorrow."

"But sir …"

"You have your orders, Watcher. Once he ceases to expel carbon dioxide, set him in the hall. The airlock attendants will see to him." Duff turned and made for the door.

* * *

"Right," said John, finished with feigning illness.

He had disliked Plum Duff from the moment that he'd realized that the scientist had experimented on Sherlock. Since that time, his opinion of the Keplerian had only gone downhill. This made what he was doing easier.

What he was doing was standing with one avenging arm around what would have been Plum Duff's neck, had the universe seen fit to provide him with one. He was holding a fistful of salt about a quarter of an inch from the Keplerian's sensitive skin. It was the highly concentrated salt that Sherlock had carefully precipitated out of a series of uneaten dinners. John had gathered it up and secured it in the folds of his toga while waiting for staff to arrive with dinner. He hadn't felt like losing another fight.

"My boyfriend." John drew a cross in the air with the index finger of his free hand. Then he drew one on Duff's ruffle with his big toe. He dug in hard, just to be sure. "I think we can assume that you lot stuck him in a lab somewhere. Curious bunch, aren't you? Never mind. You will use your scientific-level clearance to take me to him. If you don't, I'll hurt you in ways you've never been hurt before."

Duff was struggling and recalcitrant. He appeared to be readying a new tentacle. His Triangle subordinate cowered in a corner.

"No. You're not making one of those syringe things. Let's put that out of your mind right now."

John hurled a bit of salt into the wall sconce behind him. There was an audible crackle, and some of the bioluminescent plants turned black. John scooped the resulting globby weapon out of the sconce and held it to Plum Duff's nonexistent neck.

"Boyfriend," repeated John, drawing another cross in the air. "Take me to him." Here he drew a circle. "Now." He had no word for "now," so he glared in such a way as to melt protoplasm.

Valuing his life, Plum Duff got right on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Huge shout-out to the invaluable **ancientreader** for heroic duties above and beyond the call of a beta. Remaining lunacies are mine. 
> 
> You guys. **Sunlitlake** made a painting of [Umber Triangle and his officer love, Olive Hexagon](http://sunlitlake.tumblr.com/post/56267990521/). It’s marvelous. The aliens look exactly like they do in my head, except with the brilliant and necessary addition of googly eyes. Much love, Sunlit. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who gave me a heads-up on _Top Gear_ , starting with **Ariane DeVere**. I was just thinking that it was unfortunate that her prize for winning the _Sherlock’s Home: The Empty House_ [readers’ poll](http://mxpublishing.tumblr.com/post/28761001540/distraction-wins-the-sherlocks-home-readers-poll) hadn’t materialized yet (the prize was to be an recording of the story by a popular actor), so I recorded her story [Distraction](http://archiveofourown.org/works/451080) myself. The story is awesome. [My English accent](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKCYL-wt8cQ), less so. Go and contemplate both if you have time.


	20. Very Little Was Beautiful, and 662 Things Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Does what is says on the tin. Is objectionable in all directions at once. Contains nonconsensual material. Do not read this particular chapter if you're looking for fluff.

Sherlock woke naked, sore, and bound to a wall. This would not have been altogether objectionable had he at least been given a choice of partner.

Even with his eyes shut, he could tell his current companion wasn't John. The creature was too tall, for one thing. When it moved, some of the resulting air currents swirled loftily over Sherlock's curly head. Air bouncing off John's disgruntled forehead had a chance of tickling Sherlock's nose, but could not expect to travel any higher. For another thing, the noises John made when he walked consisted largely of crisp rustling (when he wore clothes) and authoritative thumping (whether he wore clothes or not). There was never any squidging or ominous squelching with John. The Army had seen to that.

"Eurrgh," said Sherlock in a dehydrated croak. His parched tongue tasted as though somebody had rubbed it with a cheap suit. Through pink eyelids, the world shone with the brightness of a malevolent sun.

No response. Sherlock opened one eye. After the night he'd had, it took effort, like cracking an egg. A fossilized one, possibly laid by a stegosaur with morning sickness.

 _You are awake_ , said his new Keplerian minder.

Sherlock cracked open a second Jurassic eye to look at her. She was a scientist – the plum pentagon on her crowning protuberance revealed as much – but she wasn't one he'd seen before. Unlike Plum Duff, she held herself with a cool, near-regal menace. The left side of her body was bisected by a long, shiraz-colored mark, plump and shiny like a blister.

 _Birthmark_? thought Sherlock. _No._ _There's something keloid about it._

It was a scar. It had to be. Normal Keplerian markings – their crowning polygons, for example – were tidy and harmonious. This was jagged and irregular, the relic of a fight. Sherlock wondered how she'd come by it. Scientists, on the whole, were intellectual creatures, slow to engage in fisticuffs. If this was true on Earth, it was especially true on Kepler-22b, where nobody had any actual fists.

Sherlock studied the shape and placement of the raised mark further.

_She's not from the fighter caste. And yet she survived the fight. More than survived it: won it. Who is she?_

_Pretty_ , said Plum Scar, who seemed to be inspecting his irises. _The spheres in your crowning appendage: they shine like ice moons._

She reached out a slick, rubbery appendage and stroked one of Sherlock's corneas with it.

 _Alert_ , thought Sherlock. _Alert, alert. There is an intruder in your eyeball_.

He thrashed and nearly choked himself on the thick tentacle at his neck. It was one of seven strategically placed at his throat, chest, waist, thighs and wrists. Looking down, he saw that they had sprung from the transparent outer wall of the ship itself. He was half embedded in it, spread-eagled and naked, like the alien abductee version of Vitruvian Man. Directly behind him lay all the starry, asphyxiating blackness of space. He could see it peeking out from behind one of his armpits.

For the first time in his life, he considered what it would be like to be eaten alive by a window.

 _Stroke_ , went the appendage. _Pat. Stroke_.

"No," said Sherlock out loud. "We are nowhere _near_ that phase of our relationship. Get your tentacle off my face." He did his best to sign this, but with his hands pinned to the wall, his comments went unnoticed.

As the tentacle wandered over his lower lip, Sherlock began to play a game. The name of the game was "What's Wrong with My Sodding Head?"

_(a) Hangover. Unlikely, as subject's past history as an addict has given him a tolerance for substances that would be the envy of a concrete elephant. (b) Torture. Probable, as captor is overly familiar with subject's corneas and has proven herself the type to take liberties. (c) Concussion. Almost certain, given recent history of unconsciousness. Also, subject is so muddled as to be addressing himself in the third person and back of the head is emitting plasma bursts like a small star._

John. John was a doctor and a diplomat. He would fix this.

"Silver Circle. The other biped. Yes? Like me, but shorter. Where is he? I need you to bring me to him."

Scar said nothing. Her tentacle was snaking its way into his ear now. Choking back panic, Sherlock peered through his transparent visitor to the cavernous room beyond, looking for a means of escape. The room was tenanted by three other scientists and their equipment. There would have been more scientists at work, Sherlock suspected, had it not been the Keplerian equivalent of a Friday night. One of the machines looked intimately familiar.

"Milking laboratory," he said, slowly. "Thank you; already seen it. No need for the tour."

The laboratory hadn't bothered Sherlock before John had gone into detail about how intrusive and wrong it was. It bothered him a great deal now.

 _Ugh_ , said the scientist. _Stop flapping your nutrient hole. It is unsightly._ She left off ear spelunking and touched the wall. As soon as she did so, the tentacles retreated from Sherlock's wrists. Relieved, Sherlock shook his hands to get the circulation back.

 _Tell me,_ said Scar, _your crowning spheres with the blue circles. Are they removable?_ She traced one of Sherlock's eyes with a languid appendage.

 _No_ , signed Sherlock. _They are delicate, and the inside of each sphere is … poisonous to other life forms. They are a form of defense._

 _Deactivate them_ , said Plum Scar _._

Sherlock shook his head vigorously. Floundering around for something to say, he cribbed a sentence from his diplomatic brother.

 _Regretfully, ma'am, that is an impossibility. I am_ – here Sherlock coughed – _otherwise at your service._

There. Mycroft was an odious toad, but he had thus far escaped enucleation. For once, Sherlock hoped to take after him.

 _A pity_ , said Plum Scar _. They would make pretty ornaments for my superiors. At the very least, they could be frozen and used to cool drinks._

Sherlock raised his right hand and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

 _Silver Circle_ , he said. _My mate. Was he hurt in the explosion? Where is he?_

Now that the shock was starting to wear off, he could appreciate just how many of his bits hurt. Current thinking was that the human body had 650 skeletal muscles, give or take a _Pyramidalis_ muscle here or a _Levator claviculae_ there. This was clearly an underestimate, because he could feel at least 662 separate muscles nagging at him. He would make a point of itemizing them when he had the chance.

When John had got him off the night before, everything had felt all right. Marvelous, in fact. Now there were only ten things on Sherlock that felt all right, and all of them were toenails.

For once, Scar stopped caressing Sherlock's various nooks and crannies with her tentacle. She seemed strangely rattled. _He is not your mate_ , she said.

_Not my mate? What would you call him?_

_Your accomplice._

_Regardless. I need to get back to him. There can be no rational reason for keeping me here._

_O ho_ , said Plum Scar. _You seek companionship_.

_Perhaps. Do you find that amusing?_

_Your last set of companions got you drunk, blew a hole through the wall, left you incapacitated on the floor, and escaped from the ship. If I were you, I would reevaluate my approach to friendship._

Sherlock goggled. How much did the scientist know? There had always been a possibility that the two Keplerians would betray him and John, but he had discounted it. He had very little experience in trusting anyone, but he trusted his mate, his mate trusted Ut and Oh, and set theory took care of the rest. If John was wrong to trust their housekeeper and his soldier love, then Sherlock was wrong to trust John. This did not compute.

 _These are the facts_ , said Plum Scar.

 _Then the facts lie_ , snapped Sherlock, fighting back the urge to elaborate. Perhaps his interlocutor had no evidence.

 _Spoken like a true biped_ , said Scar. _Your_ _slippery relationship to the truth never ceases to amaze me. Either way, you have been shanghaied by sentiment. You assisted two Keplerians in committing high treason, and this is how they repaid you. Look._

The scientist tapped her abdomen. Moving images of two Keplerians, one with a crowning triangle, the other with a hexagon, appeared in her central panel. Sherlock had a brief flashback to a family gathering in which one of his cousins diverted himself and other relations by projecting home movies onto his own pale stomach. It was one of his stupider cousins. The one who ate paint.

Sherlock watched as the pair approached a pod in the transportation lab – their peripheral shapes, as John would have pointed out, whirling with anxious giddiness. Laboratory staff stood around in a ring but didn't venture any closer. The top of the pod popped open. The soldier carefully nudged his Watcher companion into the cavity, then squidged in beside him. The Watcher fiddled with the controls. The pod swung shut. There was a bit of jiggling and a considerable amount of light, then the top flipped open again. The two occupants were gone.

_So. You taught your friends how to leave, and they left. This is how they repay your foolishness. Never mind. Their own foolishness will be repaid in short order. They are being tailed by our most elite soldiers, and they will soon be brought to justice. Their efforts, and yours, are for naught._

_An interesting theory_ , scoffed Sherlock, _but the Triangle in the video? That is not my housekeeper._

Not only was the lighter Keplerian in the abdominal video studded with pentagons and hexagons, but he was painfully thin. The bonding ceremony could explain the former circumstance, but it did nothing to explain the latter.

 _You think I manufacture the truth from air?_ asked the scientist. _War criminal, you assign your bipedal failings to me._

_War criminal? Surely you are getting ahead of yourself. On what evidence do you base this preposterous…_

Plum Scar poked the wall, and the fat tentacle around Sherlock's throat tightened, threatening his air supply.

 _I assume you wish to elaborate_ , finished Sherlock, gasping and polite.

Plum Scar gestured again, and the tentacle loosened. Sherlock was reminded of why he refused to wear neckties. Having already sworn off decorative nooses, he decided never again to button his top two shirt buttons. The world could just deal with his sternum for all he cared.

 _Do not play the idiot with me,_ said Scar _. You aided and abetted two Keplerians who wished to have unlawful relations with each other in order to foment revolution._

 _How is your judgment fair? I can't be expected to know the ins and outs of Keplerian mating_. _Things are different in NW1._

This last comment, of course, was a bluff. Sherlock had very little practical knowledge of the goings-on in London beds. Most of his information about sex had come directly from the partner the Keplerians had – with inadvertent brilliance – selected for him. Given John's colorful personal life, Sherlock knew less about beds than he did about Hampstead shrubs and army cots and the women's loo at the Barrel and Biscuit.

 _You know more than you pretend_. _You mystify the others, but I know what you want. You seek to leave the ship. All of your untruths have been a vain attempt to reach this goal._

_Wrong, wrong, and in case I have neglected to mention it: wrong. I have never been motivated by a desire to get off the ship._

This was true. The one who wanted to get off the ship was John. It had always been John. John with the three laugh lines emanating from the outer corner of each eye, the longest one stretching about four millimeters towards what would have been his zygomatic arch, if his stubborn face had had any cheeks to speak of. Beautiful John, with his compact, clever body and his smoldering fuse of a temper and his hands everywhere at once, like rain.

 _This is futile_ , said Scar. _Your subterfuge lies in tatters. Collaborate, and it may go better for you._

 _It's cold in here_ , complained Sherlock, changing tactics. _I cannot think when it's this cold._ _If you will not give me the other biped for warmth, then give me back my shirt._

_So that you can help yourself to the salt weapon that I found hidden in the rolled-up sleeve? I think not. I am examining it, and I will soon make my findings known to the Dodecagon, leader of the Keplerians. Your perfidy will guarantee me status and comfort for all my days._

Sherlock's spirits sank, immediately followed by his shoulders.

 _What do you want?_ he asked.

_You will assist in the trial of the two renegades, Umber Triangle and Olive Hexagon. They will be put to death. Then you too will be tried. Your own future is uncertain. Death, most probably, but your ascent to the vapor world may be fast or slow, depending on the degree to which you assist us._

_And my mate?_

_Stop calling him your mate!_ Scar's peripheral shapes, which had been floating tranquilly up until then, flashed on and off as if in fury. She reached out a tentacle and whipped Sherlock's torso with it.

Until John had pointed out Keplerian emotions, they'd been beneath his notice. Now he was beginning to find them interesting. They were potential clues to weakness.

As Sherlock looked at Scar, she dissolved into a cloud of English words in a modified Johnston Underground font.

\- high intelligence

\- workaholic

\- no current personal life

\- deeply insecure about social status

\- desperate to curry favor with superiors

\- history of violence

\- word "mate" produces rage

\- not responsible for policing sexual relations onboard

\- polices them nonetheless

Sherlock made a hypothesis and filed it away for future reference.

* * *

_If you kill me_ , said Sherlock, some minutes later, _I will not be able to assist you at this trial you speak of_. _Let me speak with Plum Duff, the one with the ruffle. He is the one most familiar with my case._

 _He has_ bungled _your case. You have manipulated and confused him. No wonder you prefer to interact with him. I am his superior, and I have made adjustments to his duties. He is no longer the principal xenobiologist in charge of you and your confederate. I am._

This was unwelcome news, but at least Plum Scar had stopped lashing Sherlock. He tried another tack.

_You claim that I am highly intelligent. More so even than one of your fellow scientists. You also claim that I wish to get off the ship. That has never been my motivation, but what if it were? Would it be ethical on your part to keep a highly intelligent being – and its partner – on board against their will?_

_Do not question me, biped. I am not the one who merits punishment._

_On Earth, it is traditional to hold a trial first, then mete out punishment, if any is necessary._

_We are not on Earth!_ Plum Scar waved towards the window for emphasis.

_You find fault with me for making Keplerian friends. Is that not the act of a well-meaning entity, rather than a hostile one? Why do you assume I scheme and intentionally distort things? You have provided no translators. Has it occurred to you that perhaps I have done the best I could, given the unfamiliarity of your customs and language?_

_Your best._ Some of Scar's peripheral shapes twinkled with malice. _Tell me, biped, what do you know about the onboard breeding program?_

_What of it?_

_You are aware of it._

_Ye-essss._ Sherlock signed a cautious square.

_Then you know that for some time, Plum Duff has been sitting idly by while you and your accomplice pretend to breed. First there was your misleading display with tongues. Then, when no baby appeared, we made attempts to examine your partner's genetic material. This you withheld from us._

_I did not withhold it! I took it into myself, as you wished._

_You ate it. You took it into yourself, yes, but you digested it. Afterwards, you pretended you were pregnant. You are not pregnant. We have scanned you. There is no baby._

_Not every pregnancy takes. How do you …_

_Save your hands. I have suspected you and your accomplice of trickery ever since the incident with mouths, which Plum Duff recounted to me in detail. Finding his conclusions laughable, I beamed aboard two other Earthly bipeds for testing. One with five appendages, and one with four. Your trickery has been found out. The smaller one is already expecting._

_Shit,_ thought Sherlock _._ John was not there to think it, so he had to think it for him. _Shit, shit, shit._

 _There is no place inside you for a baby,_ the interrogator continued _. There was never a pregnancy, either for you or your confederate. There was only a vast untruth._

 _I can explain,_ tried Sherlock _._ He hoped this wasn't as blatantly recognizable as a bid for time on Kepler-22b as it was on Earth. These hopes proved overly optimistic.

_The time for explanations is past. You and your partner were brought here to create children. This project having failed, your continued existence is merely an expense and an irritant._

Eyes set to Glare Factor Five, Sherlock didn't give Scar the satisfaction of an answer. His current predicament was, strictly speaking, John's fault. John was the one who had promised to produce children with him on a ship where broken promises could buy you a one-way ticket though an airlock. And yet, he was not angry at John; he was angry at the Keplerians. Love was extremely mysterious.

Sherlock's thoughts were interrupted by a strange thump. He looked through Scar and noticed that the three scientists he'd seen earlier were gone – probably back to their quarters to torture small animals, or whatever it was they did in their free time. Now he was alone with his unhinged opponent. As if sensing this, Scar ran a tentacle up the front of his thigh.

 _A priest was a witness to your tongue display,_ she said.

Sherlock groaned with impatience and revulsion. _What are you getting at?_

_He believes Silver Circle is the one who made the mating promise._

_The priest knows nothing about mating_ , signed Sherlock, turning his head away in disgust. _He is celibate._ _I can hardly think of anyone whose speculations might be less relevant._

 _The priest_ _says you are the one who knows nothing about it. He believes you did not know Silver Circle could not get you pregnant. He believes you are innocent. He says you were controlled by the other one from the start._

_I have already said that the priest is a fool._

Scar prodded the wall, pulled out a globe of liquid, and took a long drag from it.

 _Perhaps, but it is the fool's advice not to prosecute you_ , she said. _Although not accorded high social status overall, priests are sometimes influential in ethical matters. Matters of justice._

It did not escape Sherlock that the "you" in that sentence was singular.

 _And John?_ he asked.

 _If he is your controller, he is undoubtedly more suitable for breeding. Smarter. More dominant and cunning_.

Scar waved one tentacle in the direction of the milking machine.

_The logical thing to do would be to extract his genetic material, introduce it to the female, and create more bipeds with it. With adequate environmental control, his progeny would be appropriately subservient to their Keplerian masters. He, of course, would have to die. Raised in the wrong environment, he would lack the proper obedience._

_Oh_ , thought Sherlock.

This changed everything.

"John is an idiot," he said, calmly. Hearing the words out loud gave him the fortitude to translate them. His fingers swooped and dove.

 _Is that so_? said Plum Scar.

"Obviously. He's an imbecile, a buffoon. On my planet, there is a large fish that mates with a much smaller fish, and they become physically attached. The large fish supplies all the brainpower, all the decision-making. It alone hunts and eats and swims. The small fish is nothing but a source of reproductive cells, and a pitiful one at that. Silver Circle is the small fish."

_What proof do you have that you are the dominant one?_

"Please. Which one of us speaks the language? John only knows how to say what I've taught him, and that comes to a total of about four words, plus names. Yes, he used a mating symbol early on, but he didn't know what he was saying. He was merely mimicking, as a child would."

_The cost for bringing the two of you here was considerable. My supervisors are displeased that there has been no return on our investment. The Keplerian people have every right to expect children from at least one of you._

"Then it should be me. I'm the intelligent one, and I've been in control from the start. If you want superior breeding stock, I'm the logical choice. That much should be apparent even to you."

Scar put down her drink.

 _You have a history of telling untruths_ , she said.

"All the better," said Sherlock, continuing to translate. "Keep me on board, and I will teach you how they work. You will no longer be vulnerable to trickery. Imagine how powerful this will make you in your dealings with other species. It will do much to advance your research. Your superiors will be pleased, and your status enhanced. Of course, you will want to keep me alive, so that I can continue to further your education. Bending the truth is not something one learns overnight."

_And your accessory? What shall we do with him?_

"I admit I have formed a … rudimentary attachment to him. Based on pleasure." Sherlock strained his brain for a comparison the scientist would understand. He decided upon the accidental canoodling between Fool and Tart. "You know, as you would with someone you bumped into while tumbling through a doorway. Still, I have enjoyed his body long enough. Send him back to Earth and get me a proper mate. One worthy of my stature and intelligence."

_And if we do this, you will cooperate with us. Fully and without reservation._

Sherlock looked towards the milking machine and thought of John. Loyal John, with his kind and stalwart nature. John with the weathered face and ready smile. John. His beloved, his lover, his first and only love.

"Yes. Absolutely. Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Many thanks to **ancientreader** for her brilliant and incisive beta-work on this chapter. I thought it would be OK for Sherlock to hand-wave the number of skeletal muscles in the human body. She thought he would be precise. She was right.
> 
> I'm struggling with RSI issues related to typing again, so I'm going to try something this chapter where I respond to your kind remarks with an emoticon. Feel free to indicate which emoticon you want, and I'll try my best. I apologize in advance for being brief. Your comments are air and sunlight and ravishing cheekbones all rolled into one.


	21. Rescue Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for references to previous nonconsensual sexual experimentation, scientists behaving badly, and at least one furious biped.

John walked down the hall, trying to look inconspicuous. This was easier said than done. He was, after all, a small, fierce alien holding a wriggly lava lamp hostage at saltpoint.

At least there was no one else in sight. It was off-hours, and the Keplerians were doing whatever they did when they weren't ordering hapless bipeds to sex each other delirious. Sleeping, perhaps, or playing some kind of multi-polygonous mah-jong. Still. John remained vigilant.

It was a good thing he did too, because somewhere around the third bend in the corridor, the hostage, Plum Duff, made a squidge for it. John looked down to find that the tentacle he'd been grasping – not very gently, either – had turned to liquid in his hand.

"The fuck?"

He didn't know if the liquid was harmful or not, but the experience was like being spat on by a grasshopper for the first time – unexpected and unpleasant. As he tried to shake the goo off his fingers, the scientist began hurrying off without it.

"That's how you want to play it? Fine."

John lobbed a bit of salty homemade napalm over Duff's "crowning protuberance" (Sherlock's term; John cut to the chase and called it a head) and into a nearby wall sconce. The glowing plants within promptly keeled over and died, emitting a plaintive crackle and an acrid stench as they went.

"See that, all black and crispy? If you don't start being more helpful, that's you. All I'm looking for is the lab with my boyfriend in it, and yes, that's almost certainly where he is, because that's how you lot work. For crying out loud. It's not that difficult."

Although otherwise perplexed by John, Duff seemed to know a warning shot when he saw one. He came to a standstill. It was the jiggliest standstill John had ever seen, but then, that was life when you were made of jelly. Even straightforward things like skidding to a halt involved a great deal of inadvertent motion afterwards.

John caught up and wrapped his left arm around Duff's back.

"Right," he said. "Go ahead and turn your whole torso into goo and see how far that gets you. I'll pour you into a bucket if I have to."

Duff accepted the comment with silent hostility. He clearly had no idea what John was saying. John didn't let the creature's bafflement stop him. He had a role model for this. Sherlock said intelligible things only fifty percent of the time, but he kept right on going. If anything, the fact that nobody understood him made him talk more.

"Let's review the mission plans. Plum Cross. My mate. You're taking me to him. If you don't get me there as fast as your ruffle can carry you, so help me God, I'll salt you dead. Now move it."

In case Duff needed a reminder of where they were going, John drew Sherlock's Keplerian name in what was essentially the creature's haunch. He would have preferred to draw the cross over his captive's communicative plate, as this was where words usually went, but his arm was too short to wrap that far.

"He'd get a kick out of that, wouldn't he?" muttered John. "Beanpole. Obsessed with the height difference. I think he gets off on it. What? No, not you. Keep going, Rowntree. Forward march." John's last meal had worn off, and Duff was looking more and more like a giant fruit pastille.

Duff shuddered and lurched his way down several corridors. John hoped to hell that they were going in the right direction. He'd never been to this part of the ship before. Duff could have been taking him anywhere, from Sherlock's side to the trash compactor. Nevertheless, John needed him. He couldn't just barge through doors at will. Duff, like all Pentagons, had a level-five security clearance. John would need that to get where he was going.

He would have preferred to hold the salt weapon in his left hand, the one touching Duff's membrane, but he couldn't risk it. All it would take would be for Duff to take a Clouseau-esque tumble over something in the hall, and John would be left clutching hundreds of pounds' worth of black goo, or worse. There was a vapor phase to Keplerian death, but having seen what had happened to the plants, John doubted that the transition would be instantaneous.

Awkwardly, like the world's least compatible conjoined twins, John and Duff made their way around a corner. There they ran smack into a Keplerian lying on the floor. He seemed to be polishing it with his belly.

"Oi," said John, as Duff burst into a tirade of shapes. "Don't get innocent people involved. Shut up and keep moving. If you screw this up, I will _not_ be happy."

Trying to keep Duff quiet, he gave him a warning poke, but it was no use. Without the human ability to separate thinking from speaking, Duff would inevitably display his every thought across his midriff in glorious Technicolor. Furthermore, the janitor was lower in rank than Duff, which meant that he would take notice of everything Duff said. The janitor was a Watcher. It was as plain as the Olive Triangle in the center of his globby forehead. He would see, and he would get help.

And yet. Much to John's surprise, the Triangle stayed humbly on his belly, motionless. He looked like a courtier's coat tossed into a puddle for a passing queen.

John's face lit up in grim triumph.

"Well, isn't this interesting. He doesn't dare look up at you. What's the matter? You smack the idea of your five-pointed superiority into his head one too many times? That's going to make for a very one-sided conversation, mate. Right, then. Don't think I didn't see how you acted with Ut's replacement. That's what you get for parading about, treating everyone else like dirt."

They soon came across another janitor. This time, John was not so lucky. The new janitor was shining the wall with her back. As soon as they hove into view, her peripheral shapes, which had been gliding back and forth with the polishing motion, froze. There was no doubt in John's mind that she was looking directly at both of them.

_How do I rebound from this? "Lovely evening, miss; my friend and I are out for a stroll?"_

He should have learned the language from Sherlock when he'd had a chance, but the thought that the Keplerians would separate the two of them had never crossed his mind. Given how attached he felt to Sherlock, it was a surprise to be reminded that they _were_ separable. Well. He would rectify the situation pronto, just as soon as he dealt with …

"Hey. No." The janitor had just created a tentacle, and she was reaching towards a wall sconce with it. "What are you …"

The sconce began flashing rhythmically, much as the ones in John's room had just before Fool and Tart barged in and sedated him. It was almost certainly an alarm.

"Ta," groaned John. "Ta very much."

He pinched off a bit of his napalm blob and tossed it into the sconce, extinguishing the light. The hallway was no longer bathed in a strobe effect, but the damage had probably already been done. On Earth, fire alarms didn't just make a single corridor unbearably noisy; they alerted off-site firefighters to come running. Chances were good that _someone_ had been alerted to the threat posed by an irritable, salt-laden biped with a scientist in tow.

Even if the alarm had, through some miracle, gone unnoticed, word would be getting out shortly. While John was busy dealing with the light, the janitor had undulated off.

"Break's over," said John to his troublesome hostage. "Take me to Sherlock."

The cross he'd poked into Plum Duff's gelatinous flesh with his finger had already smoothed over. He made another one out of sheer frustration.

* * *

They stopped outside the transparent door of a large laboratory. It was full of towering columns. Each contained a different alien life form. It seemed at first glance like a cross between an interplanetary zoo and the Temple of Karnak.

One column contained some kind of sixteen-foot worm that crashed against the walls of its cage. John hadn't even known that worms _could_ crash. Another was home to a waterfall of yellowish sludge. It poured out of a slit at the top, landed in a pool at the base, then was sucked back up into the column again. A third column housed what appeared to be several instances of ball lightning, all jostling each other like enormous blue tumbleweeds. They made a tremendous racket. Even with the door closed, John could hear them buzzing and humming like a swarm of giant bees.

Interspersed with the columns were perhaps a dozen wide oval pedestals. These were opaque and olive in color. In a previous life, the life he left in London, John would have called them desks. At one desk, a Keplerian scientist, half hidden by machinery of some kind, used one of his tentacles to jab viciously at something on a slab. It appeared to be a dead jellyfish, or a cadaverous umbrella.

"Go, go, go," hissed John. "Do you want Dr. Jabby here to see us?"

He grabbed one of Duff's tentacles and ducked into a nearby alcove. It seemed to be a custodial closet. The vat of liquid it contained smelled very much like the parts of the ship tidied by the janitors.

Finding himself alone in the alcove, John peered back out. Plum Duff was still standing in front of the door to the laboratory. He was extremely thin. The tentacle John had grabbed had simply unfurled like a fire hose, taking half of Duff's soup with it.

A plum cross twirled around in the center of Duff's body. _Sherlock_ , John read.

 _Fuck me_ , thought John. For once, the idea was purely idiomatic.

"He's in there?"

Plum Duff stared back in incomprehension.

John signed a cross, then pointed at the lab door.

Duff signed an umber square. _Yes_.

Intent on keeping a low profile, John dropped the tentacle, bent at the waist and ran back to the laboratory door. Duff hastily drew his tentacle back in, regaining his natural girth as he did. It was like watching a party horn, its tooting complete, snap back into a less festive shape.

"Open the door," said John, pointing at the architectural feature in question. He crouched, keeping his salt weapon visible and at the ready.

Duff made no movement.

"Door. Open." This time, John punched it. The door, not Duff.

John looked up at his hostage. The scientist was quivering. All of his peripheral shapes had migrated to the side furthest from John.

 _Shapes rushing towards you mean love_. _Shapes rushing away mean what? Hate? Fear?_

John wondered what Keplerians looked like when they were both afraid and in love. For a fraction of a second, he pictured a giant novelty lamp with its shapes rushing back and forth from one side to another. He recognized that emotion. It was how any sane individual would feel about Sherlock.

Duff opened the door. Sure enough, there against the back wall was John's beloved. He'd previously been obscured by Dr. Jabby, but that scientist had wandered away from his station.

Sherlock's curly head lolled forward. He was being harangued by a large Keplerian with a wine-colored streak, and he appeared to be half-embedded in the transparent wall. His face was pale as starlight, and all of space loomed vertiginously behind him. He was just this side of conscious, but he was alive, and _Jesus, why was his torso covered in bloody great welts?_

John's heart leapt at the sight of him. Meanwhile his brain got to work on the question of who would pay for the welts. And how.

* * *

John had to get to Sherlock. But first, he had to figure out what to do with Duff. If he brought him into the lab, Duff would almost certainly tip off Sherlock's interlocutor. This might result in Sherlock's death. If he let Duff go, Duff could spread word of their exact whereabouts.

John tossed his napalm ball from one hand to the other.

 _Slap_ , went the weapon as it hit his palm. _Slap_.

He let the ball talk for him.

_This is your fault, motherfucker. You started this. You stuck my partner in a machine. You experimented on him. Did you enjoy that? All right, he wasn't my partner then, but Christ. He had no idea what was going on. He's not a toy, he's a human being. One of the better ones, actually. He's not something for you to play with. You have no fucking idea how much I resent everything you did to him. To us._

Duff's communicative screen was awash in a flood of shapes. John had a feeling that this meant, “Please, Infinitely Multisided Polygon, let me live.”

 _Slap_ , went the ball. It landed first on one palm, then the other. _Slap, slap._

Duff made himself smaller, denser, as though anticipating the killing blow. John held his ball steady and stared directly at him.

"Right," he said. "Piss off."

Duff flashed three olive-colored diamonds in the middle of his soup. It was the same comment Ut made whenever he was particularly confused by Sherlock.

John waved the arm without the salt to demonstrate a path towards freedom.

"'Piss off,' I said. Go share your fear with everyone else. That's what you Keplerians do, right? You tell everyone what's on your mind. Good. Go and spread your terror like a virus. Tell everyone that there are two crazy bipeds in the lab, and they'll destroy anyone who tries to separate them. Go on. Make yourself useful."

Duff was off as fast as his ruffled base could carry him. While most of his peripheral shapes shivered and shook in the front, one lone pentagon tossed and turned in the back, as though trying to determine what to make of John.

* * *

John headed into the lab, staying low, hiding behind equipment and furniture. He got past two desks before running into Dr. Jabby. Based on what John had seen so far, he was either a xenobiologist specializing in pathology or a necrophiliac. John hoped it was the former.

Unwilling to drop his napalm for the purposes of signing, John drew a quick cross in the carpet with his elbow. _Sherlock_. The scientist seemed to be considering this, so John drew a circle around the cross, signifying the two of them together _._ It was a long shot, but perhaps the alien would get out of the way if he knew that John only wanted his partner back.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jabby had little interest in inter-biped romance. He threw a tentacle around John's neck and pinned him to the floor with it. John looked up to see him readying another tentacle. This one was tipped with the same kind of syringe attachment that had knocked John out earlier.

Fighting for air, John grabbed the syringe and stuck it into the scientist's jelly. He hoped that this would result in an Umber Triangle-style faint that would turn the aggressor to liquid. No such luck. Instead, Jabby fell heavily to the floor, paralyzed but solid. John rolled out of the way. He was about to congratulate himself on this James Bond maneuver when he realized that he'd just wrapped the asphyxiating tentacle further around his neck.

To make matters worse, he'd attracted the attention of another scientist – not the one holding Sherlock captive, but a saffron-colored one, slender and devious. It was now towering over John with some kind of cutting implement. The thin blade shone wickedly in the light of the electric tumbleweed creatures.

Choking, John picked up Dr. Jabby's syringe-tipped tentacle and jabbed his colleague in the base with it. The colleague dropped his cutting implement and toppled over backwards. John wondered if, despite the loud humming and buzzing in the air, Sherlock had heard the creature fall.

John felt lightheaded. Black spots were appearing before his eyes, like the dark patches in a soap bubble just before it pops. With the last of his air, he grabbed the fallen Keplerian scalpel and pressed it to the tentacle around his neck. It sliced through the tentacle like a knife through butter.

Oxygen streamed into John's arteries, and with it, euphoria. He stumbled to his knees just in time to see a new scientist peering at him from behind the worm cage.

 _Right_ , he thought. _I nearly got strangled by Jabby, then vivisected by Pointy. Who the hell are you?_

The new scientist looked at John, who was flanked on both sides by prostrate Keplerians, and decided he had other things to do. He hurried to the exit, his internal shapes flapping like a cloud of frightened moths.

Against his better judgment, John let him go.

* * *

Trying to hold back a wave of revulsion, John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He'd just realized what he was hiding behind.

The apparatus consisted of an elevated trough, open at both ends, perhaps six feet in length. Cords of something thick and gelatinous hung from the edges. John couldn't tell if these were ropey tentacles or tentacular ropes. In the middle of the trough was a drain, like the one in the floor of a bathtub. A clear tube ran from it to a small reservoir below.

One of the tentacles stirred. Operating on adrenaline, John scrambled backwards. The tentacle began palpating the portion of the carpet where he'd just been.

_Oh. Bollocking. Shit._

It was the milking machine Duff had hooked Sherlock up to, weeks before. It had to be. The tentacle things were what, restraints? Or possibly something more multipurpose. John tried not to think about it too much.

His mind was still reeling at what he'd just seen when he heard a familiar baritone coming from the other side of the trough.

"I admit I have formed a … rudimentary attachment to him," it said.

 _Sherlock_.

"Based on pleasure."

_Hang on. What?_

John listened to the speech. All of it. And when he was done, he rose to his feet, got behind the scientist with the purple scar, and held the remainder of his homemade napalm to the back of her head.

"Get the fuck away from my boyfriend," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: **Ancientreader** leaves everything she touches better than she found it, and this chapter is no exception. I'm indebted to her for her expert wielding of the editorial scalpel. And for inventing the word "saltpoint." And for rampaging awesomeness. 
> 
> Some readers have asked whether there are other stories featuring John and Sherlock in space. I'm happy to report that there are. **Berlynn_wohl** 's sexy, whimsical [ROT-13](http://archiveofourown.org/works/281441) is a personal favorite. If you haven't read it yet, you're in for a treat.


	22. The Fall

There are sights that make hope rip through a person with the zeal of a bullet. Chief among these, when one is tentacled aching and half-delirious to a wall, is the sight of one's lover rising up from behind the nearby Keplerian milking machine like a pissed-off Venus bubbling up out of the Adriatic on a half-shell. Or, if one is dating a man, like bare-chested Mars emerging from Mount Etna on a wave of raging lava, which is how Botticelli would have depicted him if he'd had more interest in blokes.

"Sherlock. Fuck's sake, mate. You look like shit. Tell Whoosie to let you off the wall and let's get out of here."

"John …?" Sherlock tilted his head, then rubbed his eyes to check for hallucinations. "You look …"

He looked magnificent. He was sweaty and smudgy and bedewed with soup. He was gold with blondness, olive with Ut's bonding powder, and blue with the light from the electric tumbleweeds. His short hair, normally sparrow-neat, stuck up in at least three directions, and he glared at the scene through a full-body halo of words in a sans-serif font: _Mate. Livid. Where did those welts come from. Shit, you are SO concussed._ John was dirty and badly dressed and jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and it was all that Sherlock could do not to swoon away with pride that this remarkable example of the human race had come to rescue him. He hoped it was clear even to Scar that they had practically shagged already.

 _What on Balthus's moon is this_? Scar wanted to know. Of all the things she had been expecting from this evening, a short army doctor vigorously biped-handling the back of her crowning protuberance had apparently not made the top five.

 _That word that offends you?_ signed Sherlock. _He is it. He is my mate._

He calculated a 53 percent chance that Scar would begin flogging him again for his impertinence, but she didn't. Instead, she shifted to take in the sight of John.

 _Well, well. Look at you_. _We have many visitors to the lab, but few seek it out. You interest me, beast-for-experimenting-on. What is that you hold in your deformed tentacle, lunch?_

 _It is a weapon_ , interjected Sherlock. _Do not think_ _he_ _will hesitate to use it. On our world, Silver Circle is an officer._

His attempt to convey cool nonchalance was undercut by an irrational need to spell his beloved's name not with thumb and forefinger but with two large, loud, jittery hands. _For heaven's sake._ He may as well have written "Sherlock + John, tru luv 5eva" in Scar's jelly and been done with it.

The scientist in him rolled his eyes at his own emotiveness. It was a mercy his legs were still shackled to the wall, or these might have started signing too.

"Oi!" John held the salt weapon a finger's breadth from Scar's membrane. His hand was steady. "Why am I not seeing receding tentacles? Let's go. Plum Duff will be coming for us with reinforcements."

There are literally scores of human hand gestures for "wait." Unwittingly, Sherlock employed the one prominent in the dance stylings of the young Diana Ross.

 _Pffft_ , said Scar. _This is a weapon?_ _It looks like something your little friend fished out of a Mirrovian brandy beast's behind_.

Sherlock tossed his head at John. "Demonstration," he commanded. "She doesn't believe you. Also, she thinks you're short."

Not taking his eyes off Sherlock, John took a tiny pinch of napalm and lobbed it expertly into a light sconce behind his back. The plants inside quickly ceased to luminesce. In fact, they ceased to do anything. In life, they had not appreciated salt; in death, they greeted it with the indifference – not to mention the stench – of a batch of badly burned jam.

Scar jiggled backwards in alarm. When she stopped moving, she was a meter further away from Sherlock. Despite the jostling, John managed to hold his weapon a hairbreadth from the jelly entity's membrane without frying her solid. Sherlock wondered what phase of his army training had taught him that. If they got out of this mess, he would definitely ask.

A few sentences of Keplerian flashed on Scar's screen.

"What now?" said John.

"She says to put your weapon down."

"I say to let you off the sodding wall. Did you tell her that? Sherlock, hurry up and tell her."

"John, I'm not sure how much thought you've put into Keplerian anatomy, but that adjective is untransla—"

" _Improvise_ , all right?" The word "furious," which had been hovering between John's eyebrows, dissolved and reformed as "at the end of his bloody rope."

Sherlock relayed John's demand. Scar regarded the newcomer with fascinated contempt.

 _Is he_ still _talking? While his nutrient hole is unattractive, the moist appendage inside pleases me. When we are done here, I will remove it and give it to my Triangle slaves for cleaning cages with._

" _Now_ what's she say?"

Sherlock clutched his sore head. It was having trouble multitasking. Rather than translate, he shook it. "Scar and I have something to discuss."

John narrowed his eyes. "Are you plotting? Because I don't want you plotting, and I don't want you being clever. I want you ..."

"Yes, yes, off the wall. There's something I need to be sure of. Give me time."

"We haven't got time!"

"All the more reason for you to stop grilling me on this," snapped Sherlock. "John, you're fantastic, you're marvelous, now pretty please, _shut_ _up_."

John pressed his thin lips together. Apparently he was – marginally – in the mood to do as he was told, if his boyfriend were doing the telling. Based on prior evaluation of John's supply of patience, Sherlock calculated this mood would last …

"Four minutes," said John. "You have four minutes for chit-chat before I get ugly."

"Ten," said Sherlock.

"Four," said John. His scowl said "three."

 _Your accomplice_ , said Scar. _Did you know he was in possession of a weapon?_

_He did not have one when I last saw him. After that, I do not know._ Sherlock glared. _No doubt I could be of more assistance if everyone stopped knocking me unconscious._

_How did he know you were in the lab?_

_While a period of forced separation makes it difficult to be sure, I hypothesize sloppy work on your part. Or on the part of your henchmen._

_Once he found the lab, how did he get in?_

"Oh, for Christ's sake. Do I have to tell you everything? He rode in on a steed called Death, strewing mayhem and righteousness in his wake."

"Sherlock," warned John. "Focus."

 _You have yet to answer my question_ , said Scar.

_Someone left the door unlatched?_

_You try my patience. The door is automatic._

_Tell that to the door._

_Fool, I can see the door from here. Nothing ails it._ _I repeat, how did he get in? To enter, one must be a Keplerian of Pentagon or greater rank, and one must be tall. He is short and rankless._

Sherlock watched as John ran his free hand over his own belly. He was doing it unconsciously, as if his partner's abdominal welts hurt him. Sherlock's heart nearly stopped for fondness.

 _Perhaps he made a friend_. _He does that. It is one of his strong points. Speaking of which ..._

Scar's peripheral shapes danced with insinuation.

 _For one recently described as a buffoon and an imbecile_ , _he has many strong points. More, for example, than you_.

_Really. I am sure this is all very interesting, but..._

_Your one notable forte is treachery. Even in the midst of making a pact with me, you continued to grind the truth into dust. You claimed to be the smart one, yet here you are, stuck to the wall. You claimed to be the dominant one, yet here he is with a weapon._

"Is there any end to your idiocy? I _am_ the dominant one!"

Sherlock only realized he had said this aloud when his partner snorted.

"Pull the other one," muttered John.

"Not helping," said Sherlock, all petulance.

 _Speak with your tentacles, wretch, not with your eating flaps._

_I am more intelligent than you think. I invented that weapon. He merely wields it. And he is holding it, I might add, next to your gelatinous bulk. Let us go, and no harm will come to you. We only wish to be together. Given your own romantic history, surely you can understand that?_

_My romantic history?_ sputtered Scar _,_ advancing towards Sherlock _. What do you imply?_

"Oi!" said John, scrambling after her, salt at the ready. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Hang on," said Sherlock, putting up a hand. It was meant to be placating, but was mostly flappy. He began bellowing with voice and fingers at once. " _Relax, will you? Everyone just RELAX_."

The calming effect of this recommendation might have been greater if Sherlock had not delivered it with the same intensity that he would have used to announce that Milan was under two meters of water and Dolce and Gabbana were no longer making shirts.

"Two minutes left," said John. "Come on. She's making me nervous."

 _You will excuse us_ , signed Sherlock, glancing meaningfully at his bonds. _We are ready to return to our quarters now. If you will remove …_

_You are not returning to your quarters._

Sherlock let out a long, shaky breath. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he was not going to survive the night.

 _You wish to return Silver Circle to Earth, then_ , he signed carefully. _Very good. That was, after all, the deal. If you will give me a moment …_

_The deal is forfeit._

Sherlock's stomach made a dive towards his pelvis. _What do you mean the deal is forfeit?_

_You agreed to give me, your benefactor_ (Sherlock coughed loudly at this), _the power of subterfuge, yet you continued to wield it against me. You promised something you could not deliver: superior breeding stock. Still your hands! Your accomplice is the superior animal. You yourself are not suitable for breeding._

 _Nothing that hasn't been remarked upon before,_ replied Sherlock irritably, contemplating the one party he went to at uni.

_This is no time for juvenile musings. The fact that your accomplice is more intelligent when you asserted otherwise proves that even your explicit promises cannot be trusted._

_Then what is your plan?_

_I am sending your partner back to Earth. He does not deserve punishment for your deceit._

Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief.

_Thank you. I will help you in your trial however I can._

_Your participation in the trial is no longer desirable, biped. A trial would only give you an audience. The deal you made with me was your last chance, and you did not honor it. Trickery runs through you like a virus. It is as necessary to you as sodium chloride, and as dangerous to others. What if your ability to slay the truth spread to other Keplerians, or worse, to other captive life forms? It would be a serious threat to the social order. Anyone could develop a plot to assassinate the Great Dodecagon with nobody the wiser. No, no. Your assistance to those who would engage in forbidden unions was a serious fault, but this is worse. Any golden-plasma'd Keplerian would agree that you constitute a real and present danger to our way of life._

Sherlock schooled his expression into one of indifference.

_You realize that Silver Circle is willing and able to use the weapon he holds against you._

Scar's membrane shimmied on one side. It was the Keplerian version of a shrug.

_If your accomplice destroys me, other scientists will come to the same conclusion. Scientists' thoughts, like our vocabulary, are similar. That is one of the advantages of the homogenous castes you so despise. If am a martyr for my people's glory, so be it. But if I die, your precious master ..._

_My who?_

_... Will never see his planet again. Either way, your power to inconvenience the Keplerian people is at an end._

_If my MATE and I are so troublesome, be rid of us. Return us to our home planet._

_That is not an option. You can both die, or you can die alone and serve as a lesson to him. Choose. Let the fact that I am willing to free him despite your treachery impress upon you, if only for a short while, the superior lengths to which a Keplerian will go to keep a promise._

"Sherlock?" interrupted John. "What's the hold-up? You have one minute."

Sherlock hushed him with a wave.

 _Send him home,_ he signed. _I want him safe. Just let me tell him before I … before you implement your decision._

_Why waste time on formalities? The window hungers for your protein, corpse-to-be._

_If I do not tell him what you have decided, how will my death serve as a lesson?_

An umber square of agreement appeared in Scar's middle.

 _Very well,_ she said. _Be quick_.

* * *

"We've reached a decision."

" _We_? Who is 'we'? I don't recall casting a vote. Oh, wait, I do, and it was 'Baldy lets Sherlock off the wall.' This place is going to be swarming any minute. We've got to move."

"I know. Just listen to me. Can you listen?"

"I don't have to listen, I can look. Why hasn't she freed you yet?"

"This is important."

With a quick nod, John fell silent. Sherlock pressed on.

"Sometimes we … people … do things for reasons that aren't readily apparent."

John cocked his head. "Sherlock," he warned. "What kind of reasons?"

"Never mind what kind of reasons. Sometimes circumstances aren't ideal. When that happens, rational thought dictates …"

John's eyes were wide. "No. No, no. This is not …"

"Yes. Yes, it is. There's no other way. It's for the best. And someday you'll see …"

"No, I won't. Don't you dare. Sherlock …"

"Goodbye, John." Sherlock shut his eyes. He signed a quick square of acquiescence in Scar's direction, then waited for the window to swallow him whole. What would it feel like, dying? Cold and gooey, he expected. He wondered how long it took for windows to digest.

There was a loud bang, and then the stench of smoke. It smelled fruity and acrid, like carbonized strawberries. Sherlock opened his eyes.

"Goodbye, my arse," said John. He had just salted Sherlock's captor dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Huge thanks to girl genius **ancientreader** , who betaed this chapter. I'm especially delighted with her for coming up with the word "bedewed." Any errors here are ones I stealthily put in after she cleaned everything up. Special thanks also go to the sublime **AxeMeAboutAxinomancy** , who found a score of these errors throughout the text and helped me fix them. (Like movie Neanderthals, I drop a lot of definite articles.) Also, deep gratitude to gifted artist **youcantsaymylastname** , whose [new animation](http://youcantsaymylastname.tumblr.com/post/90618295456/mirithgriffin-has-posted-a-new-chapter-in) for this series makes me so happy.


	23. Of Love and Tentacles

John gingerly wiped some Keplerian bodily fluids off his foot by scuffing it on the carpet.

"Sherlock, what the _hell_ was that?"

"That was you messing up a plan," replied Sherlock. He gave an extravagant sigh. "I suppose it can't be helped."

" _Can't be helped_?" sputtered John. "You utter berk! Do you know what that looked like? When you said, 'Goodbye,' I thought she was going to kill you. I thought … Christ, this is insane. I don't know — I thought you were going out the window."

"I was _not_ going out the window," said Sherlock, clearly miffed. He began pinching his left hand with his right, as though startled by the possibility that he was still alive. "Ridiculous. Would have left an enormous hole in the side of the ship. You'd have been swept out too. No. Scar and I had it all worked out. The window was going to engulf and devour me, then reuse the protein."

John opened his mouth and closed it. Three times, to ward off hyperventilation.

"For God's sake! And why, exactly, were you excited about that option? Are you that determined to watch every last hair on my body fall out?"

"Protection," muttered Sherlock, chin weighed down with stubbornness.

"Protection of what? The dietary well-being of the ruddy window? Hang on, I'll get a knife." John set out in search of the scalpel that Dr. Pointy had dropped when John unceremoniously introduced him to the floor.

"Protection of _you_ , you dolt," called Sherlock.

"Sherlock, I like having hair. It's one of my fortes as a mammal. How the hell did you think that forcing me to watch your violent death was going to make my life safer or easier or more pleasant?"

"You want to go back to Earth," said Sherlock, as if demonstrating basic arithmetic. "Scar agreed to send you there if I … stepped out of the picture."

"Right. And into the fucking window."

"Yes."

Tripping over the tranquilized form of Dr. Jabby, John groaned.

"Argh," he said. "Stop. Please stop. You're giving me an aneurysm. I'm discovering new forms of PTSD just listening to you."

"All the more reason …" said Sherlock.

"No! No! Not 'all the more reason.' I don't care how big a drama queen you are; there is no reason to willingly drop dead in front of me." John picked up the Keplerian scalpel. "I love you, you idiot. If I have my way, you'll continue to drive me barking mad for years to come — as a living person, not as a flashback or a ghost or a terrible regret. Do you understand that?"

Sherlock tilted his head like a perplexed and gangly cockatoo. "Yeeee…mayb…no."

It served John right for mentioning ghosts. ("Illogical, John. When synaptic activity ceases…") Love also presented a challenge to the processing power of Sherlock's neural net. He was intimately familiar with it as the impetus for crimes of passion, but he was not used to being its object.

"Look," said John. "When we leave this ship, and we will, we leave together. Don't think about whether you understand the underlying sentiment or not. Say 'Yes, John.'"

Sherlock muttered something beneath his breath.

"Not 'Mmph, Jmph," said Sherlock's instructor, returning with the scalpel. He sawed at the tentacle binding Sherlock's chest. " _Yes, John_."

"'Yesss, John.'"

"Are you saying that with air quotes?" asked John, his eyebrows moving towards each other at a dangerous speed. "I can hear them, you know. Jesus. I can see you're trying to look after me, but I spent three years in a war zone. Do I look like I need protecting to you?"

"Yes," said Sherlock, with an air of complete candor. "Yes, you do."

And before John could take his beloved to task for his insufferable pigheadedness, Sherlock, who was dehydrated and exhausted and experiencing the effects of blood loss, passed out.

* * *

"Can you hear me?" asked John, checking Sherlock's heartbeat. It was slow but steady.

One of John's mentors had been a curmudgeonly doctor at Bart's who favored the face flick as a means of outing ornery patients who were not, in fact, unconscious. Sherlock qualified as ornery, but even in the midst of a domestic spat, and even knowing that Sherlock had requested a mate "worthy of [his] stature and intelligence" — _the fuck was that about_ , John wanted to know — he could not bring himself to flick Sherlock's ivory cheek. Instead, he stroked it. This was not clinically recommended, but it made John feel better.

Sherlock was still fastened to the wall, his shaggy head inclined in the direction of gravity. Unsurprisingly, he looked significantly more docile in unconsciousness than he usually did wide awake.

Meanwhile, the tentacles refused to give way. John sawed at them. He pulled at them. To the everlasting horror of his taste buds, he bit them. Nothing worked. There was little he could do except …

 _Of course. Ut's sphere_.

If John couldn't free Sherlock, perhaps he could heal some of his wounds so he'd be ready for whatever came next. John had hastily tied Ut's parting gift into the hem of his toga just before Plum Triangle paid a visit to their flat. Now he just as hastily untied it.

"Refusing to hear me because you've passed out doesn't mean you've won the argument," John told his companion. "Don't think you're setting a precedent."

He tossed the sphere back and forth until it popped open, revealing the clear goo inside. He poked his index finger in it, then cautiously applied some to an angry red welt on Sherlock's abdomen.

Nothing happened.

At the ten-second mark, John's hangnail began to sting. Cursing, he wiped the goo off Sherlock with his toga. Perhaps the balm was only good on lips.

"Sorry, mate. Not trying to torture you."

John headed to a nearby Keplerian desk and began ransacking it. There had to be something he could use to cut the man free. Sherlock was tall, but John had carried larger men to places of safety in Afghanistan. He just had to get Sherlock loose and sling him over his shoulders. He would figure out where to put him later.

At the twenty-second mark, the tip of John's index finger began feeling fizzy, as though dipped in shandy. Then it began feeling pleasant. Then good. Then rapturous.

John knew what it was to be delirious with pleasure. He'd felt that way during especially revelatory discussions ("Sherlock. That. Was. _Amazing_ ") and long training runs and good sex. The feeling generally localized in his brain or his cock. Never before, however, had his index finger felt as though it were on the verge of a thundering orgasm. It was a case of discovering an erogenous zone he hadn't known he had.

He rushed back to Sherlock and began reapplying goo to his ugliest welt. The surrounding skin reddened and puffed up, then began knitting itself over the ragged flesh. Within a minute, the welt was gone. John applied goo to the other wounds left by Scar's tentacular whips, and these healed too.

"Right, buttercup," said John. "Rise and shine."

Sherlock, not the most obedient of boyfriends, did none of the above. He remained motionless. John now had enough adrenaline for both of them, and it was making him punchy and desperate. He looked at his boyfriend's passive body and thought grimly of the parrot in the Python skit, able to stay upright on its perch only because it was nailed there.

"Sherlock. We're not safe here."

No response. John scanned the room for cutting implements, but he saw nothing that could be visually distinguished from the useless scalpel he'd already tried.

Not knowing what to do, he put a hand to the back of Sherlock's neck and began absent-mindedly rubbing it. It was a gesture Sherlock very much enjoyed when conscious. John paused to put a renegade curl back in place.

"Get up, love," he murmured. "I need you."

It was a lost cause. The Keplerians would find them, and they would wreak terrible vengeance upon their human captives for incapacitating two minor scientists and killing Scar. Or maybe they would just go after John for these transgressions. That would be fairer. John would push for that.

Sherlock let his breath out in a hiss. His long fingers moved warily to the nape of his neck.

"What on _Earth_ are you doing?" he asked, ignoring the fact that Earth didn't enter into it.

John did his awkward best to hug the pinned man. "You're up!"

"Yes, I'm up, and somebody's set bits of me on fire," protested Sherlock. "Ow! Let go."

"It'll be better in a moment. I must have got some ointment on the back of your neck just now. How the hell? I suppose you did sustain a head injury. It can't have affected the medulla on the upstroke, can it?" John palpated the area where Sherlock's neck met his skull. "I wouldn't have thought it could penetrate …"

Sherlock batted John's hand away. "What part of 'Ow' do you not understand?! _Stop_ touching m— Oh. Mmm. That's really quite … _ahhhh_."

Sherlock sighed and rubbed his shoulders against the wall in a way that was sensuous and feline and seriously distracting.

"Sherlock. We've got to get out of here. The scalpel does nothing. How do I get you free?"

Regarding John through half-lidded eyes, Sherlock ignored these questions. "Mmmm. John, you have the most beauuutiful fingers. They're so ... compact. _Where_ did you get that glop? Have you got any more?"

"A friend," said John. "Stop fixating and answer me. I'm not having you become chemically dependent on Keplerian body balm."

"Spoilsport," said Sherlock. He was trying to fight it, but he was definitely turned on. His cheeks were flushed, and his pupils were the size of small moons. Licking his plush lips, he gazed around the room. "Cutting implements are a dead end."

"What do you mean?" John tried not to focus on anything going on below Sherlock's waist.

"Won't work. Think, John. It's a lab. All the animals in here appear to have soft tissue or bodies made of electricity; not a single tough exoskeleton in the bunch. Why, then, would the xenobiologists casually equip their workplace with items that could slice through the side of the ship? From a security standpoint, it would be very poor practice. Just one slip-up and the staff would be independently orbiting the nearest sun. God, it's hot in here."

"Who said anything about slicing through the side of the ship? I just want to get you out of these tentacles." John waved at the fetters that had Sherlock bound at the throat, chest, waist, and thighs.

"Which spring from the window, AKA, the side of the ship. Which means that they are unlikely to be able to be cut by — ungh — anything in this lab."

"That makes no sense. You told me the _Keplerians_ were made of the same stuff as the ship. Why would the scalpel cut through Dr. Jabby's tentacle …"

The childish nickname appeared to jolt Sherlock partway out of his erotic reverie. He stared at John in silent judgment, his left eyebrow at full mast.

"This bloke who attacked me on the way in," said John. "The scalpel cut through him like a soft-boiled egg, but it won't make a dent in the tentacles that emerge from the ship. Why not, if they're all the same stuff?"

" _How_ did you get through Chemistry 101? Graphite and diamonds are the same 'stuff.' You and the dusky nudibranch are the same 'stuff.' Variability in molecular structure …"

"So what do we do?"

"Burn them," said Sherlock.

"The Keplerians? All of them? I'll get right on that, shall I?"

"If you want to get me loose, burn the tentacles. Use what's left of the salt. Most dangerous thing in the room. They're not used to it, and they haven't any widespread protections against it. Look what happened to her."

John nudged Scar's un-Earthly remains with his big toe. Why was it that harrowing times, whether in space or on the battlefield, always summoned up images from Monty Python? The scientist had clearly joined the choir invisible. Her peripheral shapes lay belly-up like expired goldfish, and the shapes on her communicative screen were frozen in some final malediction. She was still as bright and boing-y as a trifle on one end, but the other end, where her crowning pentagon had recently held court, was now smoking and crumbly and black. This charcoal-darkness was spreading slowly, patiently, through her jelly, like colored water infiltrating the petals of a carnation in a children's science project. John noted that on some of her tentacles, the damage had reached halfway and then stopped, having run out of juice.

John scooped up the rest of his salt weapon and offered it to Sherlock.

"You've got hands. You do it."

Sherlock coughed and refused to take it. "Mildly indisposed," he said. "You do it."

This was Sherlockian for "You lubed up my hindbrain and half my body with God knows what and I'd just as soon not handle a weapon under the circumstances, thank you very much."

"How do I know that this won't burn through the tentacles and the window both?"

"You don't. Just use a bit."

"Define 'a bit!'"

"Put a dab on the tentacle around my chest. That's the longest one. We want the salt to burn a man-sized hole in it. What we don't want is structural damage to the ship."

John applied the salt as directed, then kissed Sherlock hard on the lips. Sherlock, surprised, opened his mouth and let John in. He moaned and let John investigate him. John's tongue began tingling. The sensation was so powerful it was all John could manage to do to pull out.

"What was _that_ for?" gasped Sherlock. The note of panic in his voice clearly stated, "You're lucky you're not wiping ejaculate off your chest."

"Ever heard of a kiss for luck?"

"Either I deleted it, or no."

"Well, now you have. Sorry. When I was treating you, I didn't mean to get medicinal glop in your mouth."

"You didn't," said Sherlock, looking at him strangely.

* * *

The lights in the room began going on and off.

"Somebody knows where we are," said John.

"Never mind that," said Sherlock. "How are we doing?"

Four of the architectural tentacles remained horizontal, but with crumbly black bits in the middle. The salt had scorched them, leaving behind something like charcoal.

"Chest tentacle, check. Waist tentacle, check. Thigh tentacles, check. When you put your hand on it, this black stuff breaks off. You'll have enough room to weasel out of all of them."

Sherlock shot John a look that said that Holmeses did not _weasel_. John shot him an equal and opposing look.

"No window damage, and the blackness has stopped spreading on the main tentacles," continued John. "All that's left is the one around your throat."

"So get rid of it."

"Delicate operation," said John. "Not a lot of distance from the center of it to the wall."

"Irrelevant," said Sherlock. "You're a surgeon."

"And you're a handful. Stop squirming and let me stabilize my elbow on your chest."

Astonishingly, Sherlock did as ordered, and John headed in with his handful of homemade napalm. He just had to get a fleck of it on the nail of his littlest finger, then apply it to the tentacle around Sherlock's slender throat.

 _This will work_ , he thought. _This. Will. Work._

John was deep in concentration when he found himself pummeled by Sherlock's sneezes. One of his more adventurous hairs had infiltrated the taller man's nose. Startled, he dropped his salt weapon. It hit Sherlock's throat tentacle on the way down, breaking apart and leaving behind perhaps ten times more napalm than expected.

The tentacle began to burn away, and the ensuing blackness headed towards the window at a rate that made John feel sick to his stomach. "Sherlock?"

The man in question shook himself free and grabbed John by the hand. "Run," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Thanks to the brilliant and erudite **ancientreader** , who patiently fixes all my errors without ever once making me feel like a doofus, and never yells at me when I put some of them back in again. Thanks also to **Ariane DeVere** , who has had to correct my use of the word "gotten" 8,000 times and is still lovely about it. 
> 
> You guys! **ShinySherlock** made a beautiful drawing of [Ut and Oh at their bonding ceremony](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2119557). It contains Umber Triangle, with his limited vocabulary, improvising a way to say his boyfriend’s hexagonal name, and Olive Hexagon saying, “Yes, yes, yes.” To love this artwork any more than I already do would be dangerous to my health. Thank you so much, Shiny.


	24. Blown

The two men skidded to a stop in front of the laboratory door. As expected, it was gelled shut.

"Quickly, John. The key."

While the Keplerian salve had improved Sherlock's physical state, it had knocked his mental focus down a couple of pegs. Parts of his body were fizzing. It was the only way to describe it. Not all of them, but everything John had anointed, and Sherlock's hindbrain in particular. Even as a former addict, he was not accustomed to this level of fizz during working hours. It was distracting.

There were, however, larger problems. John's weapon had destroyed the tentacle around Sherlock's throat, but it had also destroyed part of the window. The resulting hole was currently the size of a cantaloupe. Its attitude towards the oxygen and air pressure requirements of the room's occupants could only be described as callous. In fact, as the salt continued to eat its way through the gel, the hole was not only growing larger, but doing so at an accelerating rate. This struck Sherlock as the height of impertinence.

"The what?" asked John. He was furrowing his forehead with gusto. There was a real danger that one day he would work his furrow muscles too hard — probably while listening to Sherlock — and his ears would end up pressed against his nose.

"The _key_. The key? For God's sake, doesn't this language have a function whereby changing the intonation of a word makes a difference in the listener's comprehension?"

"That's _Chinese_ ," said John. "Right, I'll fetch it out of my toga, shall I? What bloody key?"

An excited Sherlock could talk very fast indeed.

"Umber Triangle — xenophilia activated by bipedal osculation — syncope, secondary to concupiscence — carpet — our room — some of his bits not collected afterwards."

Astoundingly, this speech seemed to make more sense to John than repeated demands for the key. Sherlock silently thanked King's Medical School for providing his mate with extensive exposure to Latin-derived English.

"OK. Ut passed out on our carpet because it turned him on when we kissed? And some of his bits stayed in the carpet. And you want those bits now because you think the door will recognize them as Keplerian and let us out?"

"YES."

"Let me get this straight. Using those bits, we could have got out of our room."

"Er. Yes."

"At any time." John gave the tight smile that meant that Sherlock was in serious trouble. It was official: he was now possibly at greater risk from John than from the expanding hole in the side of the spaceship. "Any time at all."

"Not any time. Sometimes there were guards."

"Jesus, Sherlock, when were you going to tell me this? You pillock! _How_ could you …? _Why_ would you …?"

John took a breath that seemed to emanate from down around his ankles.

"Look," he continued. "You're out of luck. I haven't spent my free time deep-cleaning the carpet. Also, hasn't Ut got level-three housekeeper clearance? If getting out of places requires the same type of clearance as getting in, we'd need at least level-five here, yeah?"

"Excellent points," said Sherlock. "We're done for. John, believe me when I say that while our acquaintance has been short…"

"Hang on, let's think. No need to panic."

"I am NOT PANICKING!"

"We have a moment. They're still pumping oxygen into the room."

"Shhh. Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"The ventilation system."

"Not really, no. Oh. Right. They've turned it off."

"Mm."

"Cripes. Well, at least everything in the room isn't blowing towards the hole."

"Hole's not large enough yet. Wait for it."

"Ah," said John, as small objects, including cutting implements and the remains of a young umbrella beast, began flying through the air. "Well. That's torn it."

"It has, yes."

Captain Watson pushed his flatmate out of the way. Leading with his good shoulder, he ran full-tilt towards the door.

"Ow," he said.

"Non-Newtonian fluids, John. What have we learned?"

"They hurt when you apply sudden pressure with your face. I know. Just making sure. Have you got any salt left? We could burn a hole in the door with it."

Sherlock gave an imperial sigh. "I'm not wearing anything. Exactly where do you suppose I'm keeping salt?"

"Again: just making sure."

"I had some," said Sherlock glumly. "It's up there." He indicated a tall column to their far right. In it was suspended his purple shirt, complete with suspicious bulges in the rolled-up sleeves. The Keplerians seemed to be preserving it for further research.

"Right. Is there actually salt in there, or are you just trying to get your shirt back?"

Sherlock gave the snort of a mortally offended horse. "You do realize that I am not infinitely devious, and that my duplicity has bounds?"

"OK. No offense. We're not going to be able to get it down from there. Can we use one of Scar's tentacles as a key? She seemed to be in charge of the lab. If anyone could have got out, it was her."

Sherlock peered towards the window. The lab was cavernously large, and the wind was picking up.

"We could get over there," he said. "What with the rising wind, I doubt we'd be able to get back. Also, she's been charbroiled. The doors run on the principles of biometrics, not necromantics. I don't think her tentacles would work."

"Olive Hexagon could …"

"He and Ut left the ship."

"Shit, really?"

"Really."

John regrouped. "I tripped an alarm on the way here. Ship security …"

"Will show up. And when they do get here, do you think they'll risk their lives to save us?"

"Damn it. On a scale of 'Oh' to, I don't know, 'Obliterated,' how fucked are we?"

"Immensely."

"Right. OK."

What was it that people, ordinary people, said in situations like this? Sherlock thought hard while John glared at nothing and everything all at once.

"John?"

"Yeah."

"I … I'm sorry. For getting you into this."

This was met with a short laugh. "'Sorry.'"

"Was I not supposed to say that?"

"It's not what you usually say."

Sherlock frowned. "It's not what I usually feel."

"Yeah."

"But I do. Feel it, I mean. Now."

There was a large, squat column by the door. Like the other columns scattered about the room, it appeared to be one with the gelatinous floor. Sherlock plunked himself down behind it in a miserable pile and braced himself against it. The idea of being responsible for his mate's impending death was unbearable.

John crouched down facing him and put a hand on his shoulder. He began rubbing circles into Sherlock's trapezius with his fingertips.

"I don't ... blame you," he said. "For anything. I wish you'd told me about the key sooner, but that doesn't matter now. Sharing information is really not your strong suit, is it? I'm not angry with you, I'm angry with everything else. Life. These scientists. I would have liked more time with you."

"Mm," said Sherlock.

"I would have liked a lifetime."

Sherlock put a tentative hand on John's thigh. "Technically, we've had a lifetime. Something's lifetime. Possibly a mosquito's."

Before Sherlock could expound further on how a life was not a fixed unit of measurement, John kissed him. His lips were warm. Such were the powers of lapsang souchong combined with John's own body chemistry that, even after all these weeks, he still smelled faintly of tea. Something about having John's mouth on him made the clenched part of Sherlock's mind unfurl. As they kissed, he saw the events of the last hour projected on the inside of his eyelids in reverse chronological order.

"John!" he cried. "Where is Dr. Stabby-ma-whosit?"

John blinked. "Dr. Jabby? He's over there, behind one of the desks."

"Is he dead?"

"Don't think so. Reckon I knocked him out."

"Excellent. We need one of his tentacles."

"Oh? Oh!" John rose to his feet.

"If I found a scalpel, could you cut one off?"

"Already did."

"Good, because the scalpels went out the window three minutes ago. Tell me which desk and I'll get the tentacle. John? Wait!"

But John was already heading for the desk in question, aided and abetted by the now powerful wind. "I'm going after it," he hollered. "You don't know where it is."

"How are you getting back? John? John!"

Sherlock stood up. He had to plant his hands on his column in order to stay upright. He peered anxiously as John disappeared behind a desk. Sherlock was about to go after his mate when suddenly the man scrambled to his feet, clutching his prize. John squinted his eyes against the whirlwind.

"Got it. If I throw it to you, can you open the door?"

Sherlock shot John a darkly appraising look. "Not unless I know how you're getting back."

John shifted uneasily. His body language confirmed all of his partner's suspicions. "Sherlock, we don't have time for that. Just take it."

"No! Is there anything there you can use as a rope?"

John held on to one end of the tentacle and threw the other towards Sherlock, clearly hoping that it would unroll like a fire hose as it sailed through the air. It didn't.

"Fuck. Plum Duff's tentacle stretches out. Why doesn't this?"

"Amputated, therefore, not under conscious control. What else is back there?"

"Nothing. Everything's been blown out of the area but Jabby." John maneuvered himself to the other side of the desk. He tried making a step towards Sherlock and was knocked back by the wind.

"I can't get back," he called, matter-of-factly, as though he'd known this would be the outcome all along.

"Hold on," shouted Sherlock. "I'm coming."

"NO. Stay there and do what I tell you. I'm going to throw the tentacle as hard as I can, and you're going to catch it, do you understand?"

Sherlock edged himself over to the other side of the column, still clutching it with both hands.

"Don't be an imbecile! I am _not_ going without you!"

John raised the tentacle with an arm schooled in Aldershot rugby.

"Sherlock, listen to me. You're going to make it. You will catch this, and you will head for the door, _immediately. Now hold out your fucking hand_."

"NO!" Sherlock raised the hand that was supposed to be patiently outstretched in John's direction and banged his column with it, bruising his knuckles. He was about to let the wind carry him forward to John and certain doom when part of the column flew open, revealing a previously hidden compartment.

"The hell?" said John.

"Ahaha!" crowed Sherlock. "Hang on."

"Trying."

Inside the compartment were the coiled remains of a kelp creature. He had seen these graceful animals tossing playfully in the cleansing pool on the day he and John were swamped by the wave. This unfortunate specimen was long, rubbery, and — in keeping with the general theme of the lab — quite, _quite_ dead.

Sherlock braced himself behind his column and tossed one end of the kelp creature to his partner. John grabbed hold. Sherlock did his best to delete the sight of the large hole in the window behind him. If it was John-sized now, he did not want to know.

The two men worked together. One pulled; the other staggered forward against the hurricane, his feet angled sideways to create traction. As John got close to the column, the kelp snapped. He began tumbling backwards, but Sherlock shot out a long arm and grabbed him by the wrist.

"Thought you'd never get here," said Sherlock, hauling John up and over the column.

"Key," said John, grinning. "Want it?"

"Yes."

Sherlock plucked the Item-Formerly-Known-as-Dr.-Jabby's-Arm from John's hand. Then he strode forward a few steps and tried to fit the key to the pale patch just above the door. Before he could make contact, the wind blew him back against the column.

"Fuck's sake," said John. He braced one foot against the column, seized his boyfriend by the waist, and leaned heavily on him to propel him towards the door. With a little hop, Sherlock slapped the key against the correct spot. The door opened.

Sherlock's long fingers scrabbled at the doorframe. He caught hold. With a heavy grunt, John shoved them both forwards into the hallway. The door regained solidity behind them, and both men slumped, exhausted, to the floor. They were safe.

Not so, however, doctors Jabby, Pointy and Scar. Through their transparent wall, John and Sherlock watched them sail out the hole in the lab window like a trio of giant balloons.

"Terrible," said John, shaking his head. "War. It's _always_ terrible."

Sherlock shook his head too. "My shirt," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: My rare and radiant husband, **Mr. Mirith** , was a huge help in editing this chapter. All errors are mine.
> 
> Are you going to 221b Con in April? If so, please stop and say hi! I’m on a few panels: “Sherlock Holmes’s London Travel Guide,” “Victorian London,” and “Beyond Wikipedia.” I look like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKCYL-wt8cQ), and regrettably, yes, that is my attempt at an English accent. If you’re in Atlanta in a few weeks, please feel free to give me some pointers on it.


	25. Besotted

John leaned back against the wall. Fractal-like, Sherlock leaned back too, with his shoulders coming to rest on John’s thighs and his curly head on John’s stomach.  John wrapped an arm around him.  He was too knackered to do much else.  They were both too tired to run, and anyway, where was there to go?  Sherlock had dropped their only key while pawing at the doorframe. For now, John was just happy to be alive and in the company of a well-oxygenated boyfriend. 

“Oh my God,” he said, clutching at Sherlock’s right deltoid. John meant it as a hug, but his muscles were spent and it came out as more of a spasm.   “We’re here. We’re alive.  We’re all right.”

Sherlock tilted his head back. His expression was so nakedly affectionate that John ached to see it.  It was a look that would have been dazzling on any face, but on Sherlock’s pale and craggy Alpine features, it was enough to render the beholder snow-blind. John regretted that he did not have the physical or mental wherewithal to thank his boyfriend for continuing to exist by shagging him into the carpet.  Instead, he gave him a bleary upside-down kiss that aimed for the lips but missed.

“ _I’m_ all right,” said Sherlock.  “Are you all right?”

While Sherlock looked angelic, something about his tone of voice did much to invite suspicion.  John peered at him. 

“Yes, of course I’m all right.”

“Well, you did just kill a scientist.”

There it was.  A public declaration of Keplicide.  Even on a ship full of creatures who didn’t speak English, John couldn’t help but look around to see if anyone had overheard.  He was perfectly willing to kill on Sherlock’s behalf; what he wasn’t willing to do was talk about it.  Directly afterwards. While still coping with the relevant emotions.  In public.

 “Yes, I …”  John frowned.

Sherlock was unwilling to drop it. “The one with the scar,” he said.

John's frown darkened into a smile that wasn’t. What it was was a flat underscore of lips surrounded by a grim parenthesis of nasolabial folds. Years ago, he had honed this look on Captain Peterson, who stole the Hobnobs out of John’s Christmas packages otherwise. It was not so much “looking daggers” as looking grenades.

“That’s true, innit?” John flashed his teeth.

“Because you also killed that other one. The one with the severed tentacle.” Sherlock waved his hand like Prince Hamlet dismissing a courtier.  “Jabby, MD.”

Frowning:  useless.  Smiling: useless.  Next on the roster of things meant to change the subject: Watson Family Throat Clearing #5, a noise so full of displeasure that it would have stopped a herd of rhinoceros in samurai armor led by Jonathan Ross.

“EhereherHEM.  Sherlock, where are you going with this?” 

 "Then there was that other one who flew out the window just now.  Who _was_ that, anyway?  I don’t think we were introduced.”

“Up to three now, are we?  Top counting, mate.  Well done.  Now if you don’t mind …”

Sherlock didn’t mind.  Oblivious to John’s protests, he was orbiting planet Death Count in an ecstasy of calculation. 

“Also, while it would be a mistake to judge before having all the facts, I think we can expect that, given the vast hole in the side of the ship, explosive decompression is imminent. Catastrophic failure, otherwise known as ‘boom.’ _That_ should up the body count quite a bit.  Furthermore, I estimate that the number of casualties caused by projectiles cast off by the explosion…”

The sight of Sherlock miming projectiles proved too much for John.  He grabbed the man by the shoulders and began shaking him back and forth. 

“ARRRRRRRGH!”

“ _What?_ ” Sherlock looked genuinely startled. “I’m only trying to determine whether you’re all right!”

“GAHHH!  I’M GRAND!  I’M LOVELY! I’M FINE!”

“FINE!”

“THAT’S WHAT I SAID!  ‘FINE!’”

“FINE, THEN!”

John snatched his left hand back and began digging at the furrows of his own forehead with it, as if trying to excavate an iota of peace from that unlikely spot.  The two of them sat in silence.  Then Sherlock picked up John’s hand and placed it back on his bicep so that John was holding him again.

“What I may not have expressed in full,” said Sherlock, quietly, “is that while you did kill Scar, you did it to save my life.”

John gave a slight nod. 

“Thank you,” said Sherlock, after some hesitation. The non-sarcastic iteration of this phrase emerged a bit rusty, as though it had been lying at the bottom of a watering can in the back garden.  Possibly since the Thatcher administration. 

“Don’t mention it.”

“Also, upon further reflection, I conclude that the two extra scientists who flew out the window were casualties of my own actions. Ditto for the ship’s passengers, and for anyone who ends up pierced, smashed, vaporized, set on fire, or otherwise inconvenienced by exploding projectiles.” 

“Oh?  How do you figure?”

“I _did_ sneeze.  You wouldn’t have spilled the salt weapon if I hadn’t.”

John let out a long breath.  “You’re a bright boy, but I doubt even you have full mental control over your autonomic nervous system.  I blame the scientists.”

Sherlock thought this was a marvelous idea. He beamed as though John had just synthesized the 120th element from Quavers and Marmite.

“Absolutely.  _Let’s_ blame the scientists.”

“They weren’t very nice scientists.”

“No,” commented Sherlock, sprawling comfortably in John’s lap again.  “No, they weren’t really, were they?”

“And frankly bloody awful hosts.”

“That’s true.  They _were_ bad hosts. You should have heard Scar’s ideas on how to chill the sangria.”

John smiled down at him.  It was a real smile, not the Kandahar Death Rictus.

“You have a morbid look on your face,” he said. “ _Happily_ morbid.  We’re discussing party drinks, and you look happily morbid.”

“Really, John.  In this one area, your granularity of observation astonishes me. Most people can tell when others are sad, angry, appalled, but who recognizes a facial expression as ‘happily morbid?’”

“I do.  Me. A man whose boyfriend grins every time he thinks about stealing an egg carton full of eyeballs from Barts.”

Sherlock huffed.  “I told you, eyeballs don’t _come_ in cartons.  They weren’t in the carton when I stole them.  I merely put them there _afterwards_ , to prevent them rolling around in the cab.”

“So the morgue staff don’t stay up nights, gift-wrapping your eyeballs?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes.  “Not yet.”

“That,” said John.  “That grin.  Yes. That.” 

* * *

 “Merciful Meg,” gasped the scientist, though he was not by nature religious. 

When the insane, companion-obsessed laboratory creature had set him free, the scientist’s first priority had been to squidge off as fast as possible on his ruffled base.  He oozed his way down several corridors, leaving an undignified trail of terror-induced slime behind him.  When he got to the nearest guard post, he threw himself against the door.

“Let me in!” he cried. 

Inside the transparent room, a crew of guards stood around watching a huge screen.  On it was projected a game of Tentacle Sphere.  Several guards slapped the floor in delight as a player sent the spiked ball flying into one of the playing field’s thirty-six holes. 

“Find your own watching space!” shouted the guards in their large font.  “This space is for Hexagons only!”

“You must help me!” cried the scientist. “Open the door. Please, I do not care about the game!”

“You should do!” hollered one of the guards. His accent was that of an off-worlder. You could see it in the slightly rounded apexes of his communicative polygons.  “It’s the final game of the orbit!”

There was much noisy discussion of the scientist’s shortsightedness vis-à-vis not wanting to watch this highly important — nay, crucial — game. There were also quite a few Keplerian “oohs” and “ahhs” when a Midorian fire snake arose from the pit into which the sphere had just disappeared.  The enraged snake chased the player around a bit, then swallowed him whole.

Gibbering with a fear that had nothing to do with snakes, the scientist pounded on the door. 

“Get in here and stop making that racket!” hollered the off-world guard.  He opened the door and pulled the scientist in.  “Who do you think you are, not liking Tentacle Sphere?  Poncy bugger.  Show some respect!”

The scientist was glad to be out of the hallway.

“Please help.  A violent animal is loose.  Scar was experimenting on its companion in the main laboratory, and now the creature is going berserk.  It is taking hostages. Jelly will be spilled.”

“Pull the other tentacle,” said the guard. “Oi!  Well done, my offspring!”  A new player had just sent a ball spinning down another hole. This time, however, the reward that sprang up out of the ground was a boingulating new bedroom set, not a tower of hot, fanged, reptilian death.

“You do not understand,” said the scientist. “The bipeds are crafty and exceedingly dangerous.”

“The bipeds,” replied the off-worlder. For the first time, he looked the scientist over carefully, pausing to note his unusual ruffled base. “The bipeds that have ‘no idea of how to procreate’?  Those bipeds?”

So the scientist’s report _had_ gone viral.  Why did he have the feeling that all over the ship, Keplerians were passing around electronic copies and quivering with gelatinous mirth?  He was a laughing stock.  No wonder he had been downgraded to Junior Xenoentomologist for Outer Beryllium.

The scientist persisted. “The biped has a weapon. I have seen him use it. There is no doubt that it is lethal.” 

And yet, the hostage taker had let him go once they reached the area where the companion was being held.  This was an oddment.  Why did the creature not kill him?  What did it mean?   The scientist shook his ruffles in anxious perplexity.

“Describe the makeup of this weapon.”

“Bouillabaisse,” said the scientist. “Also gazpacho, and when that is not available, borscht.”

“Get out of here,” said the off-worlder with disgust. And with that, the scientist found himself tossed back into the hallway. 

It was painfully obvious that no one in the guardhouse was afraid of a pair of romantically challenged bipeds, no matter what handicrafts they had made from their lunch.  So it was a relief when the squadron leader, Plum Hexagon, returned from the commissary, read the logs, and gave her soldiers a dressing down for their unprofessionalism.

“I deeply regret that this crime was not taken seriously,” she said.  “Well. It is not a crime, exactly, because it was perpetrated by an animal, but still.   The animal sounds clever and hostile.  He must be taken back into custody.”

Finally, the scientist was being treated with respect. He presented the squadron leader with five circles of gratitude.  It was all he could do not to add a sixth. 

“I will investigate the situation myself,” said the squadron leader.

“You must bring backup,” said the scientist. “It is not safe.”

“Then I will bring my aide-de-camp. Unless … perhaps you were suggesting that you would like to assist us in subduing the animal?  You are very brave.  You have already experienced much today.  I would not normally ask you to return to the scene, but given your expertise with off-world creatures, it would be of some help.  Perhaps you can show us the way?”

For a brief moment, the scientist considered pointing her towards his inadvertent trail of terror-slime.  Surely that could be her guide.  He had had enough of weaponized laboratory animals for one day.

Unfortunately, the squadron leader was so empathetic and good-natured that he found it difficult to turn down her request. An unseemly number of umber squares began spilling across the scientist’s communicative plate.   Some of his symbols began edging closer to her. 

“Yes.  Of course. Do you know the science area?”

“Vaguely.  I have not been there in a long time.  Trouble rarely emanates from that sector. This will be an adventure.”

“It certainly will,” thought the scientist. The squadron leader set forth. Quaking and jiggling more than mere ambulation required, he hustled after her.  The aide-de-camp brought up the rear.  The scientist barely noticed him.  He was much more interested in the squadron leader’s birthmark.

The birthmark — or rather, given the nature of Keplerian reproduction, the puddlemark — consisted of a sparkling mist of tiny air bubbles.  They spun slowly in a ring around the officer’s crowning Hexagon, catching the light as they went. An off-worlder might have thought of a glass of champagne, a drop of amber, an especially spiffy marble won in a game of skelly.  The scientist had never heard of these things.  He only knew that society at large considered such marks disfiguring. 

That, however, was ridiculous. The officer’s marks were lovely and enthralling.  Society at large was an idiot. 

Naturally, these opinions immediately broadcast themselves across the scientist’s middle in all their horrifying candor. It was bad enough that he was experiencing such feelings, but to shout them aloud to someone from another caste! His only hope was that the squadron leader would not turn around and catch him in his woeful besottedness.  

The squadron leader turned around. “Do we go left at the ...?”

“Your mark is like a galaxy,” blurted the scientist. “Another galaxy. Not this one.  A better one.  One I would actually want to live in.”

“Oh my!”  The squadron leader reached out a concerned appendage and pressed it to his flesh, apparently looking for fever.  “Are you all right?”

“I am so very, very sorry,” said the scientist. His torso took on a purplish hue where she was touching him.  He was deeply chagrined to have thought such things.  What had gotten into him?

“Think nothing of it,” she said, gravely, withdrawing her tentacle.  “No doubt your systems are on overload due to the death threat you received.  It is natural to be shaken after such a fright.”

“You are very kind.  I am beginning to wish my anatomy would permit me the emotional stealth found among my new charges.”  The next thing the scientist knew, he was telling his new acquaintance about the Beryllian Biting Beetles from beyond the Black Bog. It was mortifying.

“Oh, yes, the promotion!  Congratulations.”  The scientist waited for the officer to laugh heartily at her own joke, but it appeared she was serious. 

“I’m not sure that it was a promotion,” admitted the scientist. 

Now the officer laughed, her jelly rippling. “So modest.  How many legs do your new animals have?”

“Six.”

“Three times as many,” said the officer, her peripheral shapes swirling with approval.  “You have done well for yourself.”

“Thank you.  Not as well as you!  Look at you, with a whole squadron under your command.  That is more appendages than I can count.” 

“Sweet tentacles on a plate,” said the aide-de-camp, who had maintained a discreet silence until then.

The scientist stopped swooning over the squadron leader and looked around.  They were outside the lab.  From this vantage point, he could see a gigantic hole in the side of the ship.  

It was as clear as the unobstructed view of Kepler 22a: they were all going to die.   It was possible, in fact, that his supervisor had gotten a head start on this project, as she was nowhere to be seen.  This despite having blocked out an evening for one of her favorite pastimes:  stapling a laboratory creature to the wall.

And where was the laboratory creature? It was curled up with the hostage taker. The two of them were practically gurgling with bipedal love.

Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Scar had said that they weren’t mates, not really.  She had demoted him over it, in fact.  But what else could they be? The hostage taker, who had seemed so feral, so violent, was now expending all his energy on tenderly palpating every part of his companion’s physical form, as if making sure all his bits were still there.  Meanwhile, the companion was doing the same, to the extent that they were knocking appendages and getting in each other’s way.  When they became aware of their Keplerian visitors, the hostage taker tried to shield his companion with his body, but the companion pushed him down and sat on him. Everything about them indicated that they were mad for each other. 

And yet, they had been locked up for ages and produced no children.  Who knew if they were really even having sex.  It was a puzzlement. Possibly, thought the scientist, the last one he would ever encounter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank-you to **Ariane DeVere** for her invaluable transcripts. I used them as I thought about a certain cabbie. Thanks also to this chapter’s beta, **Mr. Mirith** , “whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.”
> 
> Also, much appreciation to the people of 221b con. Thank you so much to everyone who sold me merch or rocked a panel or wore an extraordinary outfit or just said “hi.” It was wonderful to see you. Extra squee to **snogandagrope** , **reluctantabandon** , and **HiddenLacuna** for helping to make my con experience marvelous.


	26. Connected

"Hole in ship," said the squadron commander, as the hallway lights flashed a frenetic warning. "Alert engineering. Send immediate assistance to Xenobiology Lab, sector Pentagon. I repeat, alert engineering. Massive hole in the side of the ship."

These instructions were relayed to the commander's post by virtue of a peculiar characteristic of her aide-de-camp. He was networked to the rest of the squadron, and the commander could communicate with them by punching orders into his communicative plate. The aide had been chosen for this role because he was spectacularly taciturn. Due to his quiet nature, chances of his words and thoughts interrupting the signal were slight.

"Do you think we can be saved?" asked the scientist. He was rather attractive, the commander thought. There was something about his ruffled base. Also about his awkwardness. It was one of those things that wasn't supposed to be compelling, but was.

"Possibly," said the squadron commander. Her name was Umber Hexagon. Her friends called her nicknames relating to her elaborate dusting of air bubbles, but she and the scientist were not friends, were they?

"I hope so," replied the scientist. It was not clear if he was talking about being saved or being friends. Umber Hexagon had other things to worry about. She continued to punch orders into the aide-de-camp's gelatinous belly.

"Engineering is apprised of the situation, ma'am," came the response from her underling, the off-worlder obsessed with Tentacle Sphere. "Await further orders."

Shortly thereafter, a powerful waterfall of clear goo came streaming out of the far end of the Xenobiology Laboratory's ceiling. It ran down the gigantic window and thoroughly coated everything, plugging the area where the hole used to be. The alarms turned off. Inside the lab, the more advanced laboratory animals, safe inside their massive columns, erupted in what appeared to be overwhelming applause. The blue tumbleweeds crackled in unison. The sixteen-foot worm swirled around in an exuberant spiral dance. The sludge creature was so happy it literally bubbled. The crisis was over.

"Hole fixed," typed the squadron commander. She'd never felt more relieved in her life. "Send backup. Bipeds are cornered and must be returned to captivity."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but bipeds are horny and _what_?" asked the incredulous off-worlder.

"Bipeds are _cornered_ ," repeated the squadron commander. "They must be returned to captivity. Send backup." The aide-de-camp, normally the soul of silent rectitude, had messed up the first transmission with a series of unfortunately timed burps.

"Yes, ma'am," said the off-worlder. "Do you want the bipeds taken to their quarters or secured within the laboratory?"

"Neither. They will have to go to the holding cells in sector Heptagon."

"The holding cells?" asked the sweetly shy scientist with the ruffled base. Then he turned a bit purple around the middle, embarrassed at having been caught peering through a higher-up's body in order to spy on her conversation with someone else.

"Yes," said the commander. "It rarely comes to this, but I don't have to tell you that these animals are a top-level threat. The small one took a valued staff member as hostage" — the scientist blushed harder at this — "and almost destroyed the ship. The tall one, while not actively violent, seems to spur the small one on. The two of them will almost certainly be called up by the Council of Seven and subjected to the Reckoning."

The scientist shuddered at the Council's name, his jelly trembling in fear. It was all the commander could do to keep from trembling too. The animals were in for a bad time.

* * *

"Sherlock?" John's voice was muffled, because he was secured belly-down on a gelatinous cot. His head was turned to one side so he could breathe, and his wrists and ankles were bound tightly to the bed. The bed in question wasn't sumptuous like the one in their usual enclosure; rather, it was a drab, flat, narrow, spartan affair. It reminded Sherlock of the dusty slab of aspic once foisted upon his toddler self by dotty Aunt Ophelia.

"Mm."

Sherlock wasn't bound. Rather, he was gagged. The Keplerians had decided that Sherlock was dangerous due to his ideas, which were transmissible by mouth. John was dangerous due to his body, which, left to its own devices, was likely to cram a salt weapon absolutely anywhere if it meant he would get his partner back.

"I saw you watching Duffy and Fizz. What happens after this? Did you pick up any news?"

Leave it to John. Even when not among friends, he was irrepressibly companionable. Due to her bubbly appearance, the commanding officer who had discovered the giant hole in the lab window was now Fizz. Plum Duff, the scientist with the ruffled base, was now Duffy. This despite the fact that John had never liked Duff and had recently dragged him down a corridor at saltpoint. Sherlock took a moment to be grateful that John hadn't given him a nickname. It was anyone's guess what monstrosity might emerge from John's brain. Sherlock was _not_ the kind of anyone who guessed.

There was something that their Keplerian overlords hadn't accounted for. English had a written form. In response to John's question, Sherlock nodded, then spelled out the news with a long finger on his mate's bare back. "Reckoning." he wrote. "Council of Seven."

Ticklish, John squirmed until Sherlock had finished.

"Like a trial?" he asked.

Sherlock nodded again.

"Jury of our peers, yeah?"

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.

John's voice, when it emerged from the cot, was pitched low in Holmesian imitation. "'It cannot have escaped even _your_ limited powers of observation, John, that the number of murderous bipedal Earthlings refusing to impregnate each other in this vicinity is hovering at, oh, let's see, _precisely_ _two_.' I know. I'm joking."

Sherlock arched another, more aggrieved eyebrow. He waited for John to launch a counter-protest ("Actually, you sound _exactly_ like that"), then let both eyebrows settle.

A few hours ago, he and John had been marched off to this unfamiliar level of the ship by a complement of unusually grave Hexagonal soldiers. Sherlock would have thought of them as stone-faced, had faces not represented a blatant omission from the Keplerian anatomical plan. The soldiers stripped John of his long-suffering toga, bathed the two of them in a substance John dismissed as "sheep dip," bundled them into the cell, and left them gagged (in Sherlock's case) and fettered (in John's).

Then John went to sleep while Sherlock watched over him. Sherlock wasn't tired. He'd only pretended to be tired after they'd escaped from the lab because otherwise he would have had to listen to his exhausted mate insisting _ad infinitum_ that he run off and save himself. He didn't want to run off and save himself. He wanted to be with John.

For a while, as John slept, Sherlock had tried to claw through his bonds. When this hadn't worked, he'd stalked back and forth, glaring for all the world like one of the Tower of London's captive ravens. Now that John was awake, Sherlock was still doing a fair bit of stalking and glaring. These were, and always had been, his behavioral defaults.

"Did you see Duffy's shapes?" asked John.

Sherlock mimed a pile of shapes pressed against the side of his body closest to his mate.

"Yeah. He's got it bad for Fizz, all right."

Sherlock drew a pentagon in the air. He was about to do some more drawing when John stopped him.

"S'right. Scientist plus soldier equals trouble. Not allowed to bone outside their caste." John paused, clearly thinking about whether there was a better way to say that with regards to invertebrates.

Sherlock nodded. Outside the context of crime, relationships usually bored him solid. Nevertheless, he'd immediately noted that Duff was pining for the officer. He thought of the schoolyard comment, "It takes one to know one." Duff wasn't the only scientist on board with eyes for a soldier.

"You know," said John, "for a culture that prides itself on a lack of intercaste relationships, I don't think they've got this stuff locked down. If we could find a way to …"

 _Exploit that_ , thought Sherlock.

"Expand upon it," said John, picking the gentler verb. "It's like there's a quiet undercurrent of Keplerians who are interested in, uh, nontraditional relationships. If you ask me, half the time the higher-ups don't notice. They pretty much ignore what people from the lower castes are talking about and blame their apathy on small fonts. If our situation goes to trial, we might get some help from Keps who don't appreciate the government meddling in their love lives."

"Mm," said Sherlock. He'd thought for some time that the ban against intercaste attraction was creating fractures in the social bedrock. Ut and Oh were not the only ones affected.

John seemed to read his mind. "If only we knew where our friends were. A little backup would be … _fuck_."

John writhed on his cot. Sherlock went to his side and touched his left shoulder, examining it.

"Yeah," said John. "It's cramping. Got a bit banged up when they frog-marched us to the cell."

Sherlock frowned. _It got "a bit banged up" when somebody put a bullet in you in Afghanistan_ , he thought. He began rubbing the shoulder with the flat of his palm.

"Ah," said John. "Almost. I don't suppose you can …"

Sherlock climbed on top of John and began rubbing the shoulder in earnest.

Massaging John's body was like picking a lock. There were areas of laxness, areas of tension. It took a sharp mind and sensitive fingertips to determine what to do with each.

"Oh God. Ungh. That's amazing." Given the placement of John's head, Sherlock could see only one of his pupils, but that one was getting suspiciously larger. "Who taught you that?"

 _You_ , thought the consulting masseur. _Your trapezius and deltoids. They exhibited tightness; I responded with equal and opposite pressure. Physics._

He shifted all of his weight onto his palms, pressing John into the bed. His mate gave a groan of pleasure. This inspired Sherlock to rock back and forth, letting his weight move from his hands to his knees and back again.

"Ungh," said John. "I don't suppose you've noticed this, but every time you sweep over me like that, you drag your dick over my arse."

Sherlock had noticed.

"You're making me hard," said John. "Oh God. Am I supposed to want you this much? You're driving me mental."

Sherlock was hard himself. Silently, he let his erection slide over John's cleft.

"Right, that was deliberate. This isn't how I pictured your first time, it's really not, but, uh. Do you want to fuck me?"

"OUR first time," spelled Sherlock. Because "Really, John; there's no need to act as though I'm the only novice here" was a long sentence, and his parthenophiliac mate was a small canvas.

"Yes, fine, I haven't been with a man before either. Er, blowjobs, yeah, but not more than that. Do you want to?"

Sherlock climbed off John and knelt beside him on the floor. He peered into the other man's face. John's eyes were astonishing. So blue, so steady, so certain. Sherlock's were six different colors before breakfast.

Silently, he nodded. His nerves sang with the electricity of wanting John.

"Thank God. You've had me on edge since we survived the window thing. There just hasn't been time for it."

No, there hadn't been. Not unless they'd been willing to fall to the floor in the hallway, snarling like wolves. Sherlock's lips twitched. He wondered what Mycroft would have thought about _that_ : his frigid little brother on his knees in a public thoroughfare, making ravenous love to someone who hadn't even voted Tory in the last election. If they ever got back to Earth, they could go round to Mycroft's place and find out.

"Danger junkie," spelled Sherlock. It was true of him and John both. There was something about run-of-the-mill danger that made them want to get their hands on each other, and there was something about nearly getting killed that meant that hands would not suffice. 

Sherlock went to the wall sconce. He returned with bioluminescent goo and what must have been a hesitant look, because John rushed to reassure him.

"Don't worry. I won't let you hurt me."

Sherlock opened his arms wide and gestured as though conducting an orchestra. _Look at the situation_ , he thought.

"Let me rephrase that. You won't hurt me. I didn't believe that sociopath act from day one. You're a lamb."

"Hardly," spelled Sherlock, using the hand that wasn't holding the lubricant. John had no idea how he was with other people.

John licked his lips. "Fine. Whatever you are, you're brilliant and you're beautiful and I've been mad for you for weeks. Do you have any idea how badly I want you? Get down here and open me up."

Sherlock knelt next to John. Again, he was confronted with the soft combination lock of his mate's body. He thought about how John had fingered him earlier and let the memory school him. His wet fingers circled, then dipped.

John moaned. He backed up, wanting more penetration. The bed scrunched under the pressure of his abdominal muscles, then smoothed out into a wedge.

"Oh God," said John. His voice was low and wanton. "Instant sex furniture. That's it: I'm buying a round for the guards."

Sherlock filed this fact away: there was furniture specifically for having sex on. Astonishing. And some of it would keep John as he was now, shoulders down and arse up. It might even do the same to Sherlock, if the need arose. Truly, the universe held unexpected marvels.

The lube was doing its work. Not only was it smoothing the way for Sherlock's fingers, but it was fizzing in a way that was doing wonders for John's already overclocked libido. Its tiny spangles were creating minute, intimate detonations. As the vibrations hit John, he shivered and bucked.

"If we ever get off this ship, we. Are. Taking. _Oh!_ _Ungh!_ These plants."

"And me," spelled Sherlock, mildly affronted by the idea that John owed all his current rapture to the lubricant. 

"And you. _Ungh!_ Jesus, Sherlock." 

It was time. Sherlock draped himself over John's body like an overcoat. He wished he knew more about sex. He had many questions but could ask none of them, not without covering his mate in script. Unable to press his lips against John's with the gag in his mouth, he settled for nuzzling the side of his face.

" _Nngh_. There's something about having your weight on top of me and your breath in my ear that makes me want to get fucked so badly. Come on. Have at me."

Slowly, Sherlock entered him. When he was in as far as he could go, he buried his nose in John's silky hair, willing him to understand that this was a makeshift kiss. He waited for John to tell him what to do.

It was odd, this obedience. He didn't have it for anyone else. It was part of how he knew he was in love.

"Move," said John. "I want to feel you. Move now. I'm ready."

Sherlock moved. He experimented with fucking John shallowly, looking for ways to please him.

John groaned as if he'd been shot. Sherlock froze.

"Keep going," said John. He was panting now. "I'm not hurt. Far from it. A little to the left, maybe? Oh, fuck. Like that, _exactly_ like that."

John was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and his hair shone in the soft, peach-gold light. Everything about him was radiant. He was magnificent.

"Oh my God," he gasped. "I can't believe nobody's done this with you before. London is made up of idiots."

Love you, thought Sherlock. "Love" was the down stroke and "you" was the up. It was silent music, this manner of touching John, of being with him. And when John closed his eyes, it was like John was offering him music in return. The trust there! It was like nothing that Sherlock had ever imagined. The abandonment of John delivering himself fully into his lover's care sang through Sherlock's nerves with all the pleasure and pain of a Sarasate piece.

"Fuck me harder," said John. "I want to feel you. All of you. Harder. Come on."

It was amazing how commanding Captain Watson could be on his knees. 

They continued striving sweetly in the half-light. It occurred to Sherlock that John hadn't reached climax, and from what he had said earlier, it was likely that he wasn't going to. And yet his enjoyment was palpable. He seemed lost to the experience of having Sherlock inside him. He was naked and open and utterly connected.

It was this awareness of John's bliss that spurred Sherlock on towards orgasm. He clutched feverishly at John's upper arm, trying to tell him what was happening. But how? Even without the gag, it would have been difficult. It was as if, for as long as he could remember, his brain had been a closed fist, and now it was opening. Yes. It was open now, and everything was flying out of it. Colors. Sound. Light. So much light. The light was shooting out of his brain, his fingertips, his toes, his chest, his cock. He looked at John, and John's planet-blue eyes opened wide, and he looked at John looking until they were bound up together like circles upon circles. Then he cried out into the gag, and John welcomed him deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to **Ariane DeVere** , who is a first-class editor and friend. Mistakes are mine, and places where the mistakes used to be are hers.
> 
> I'm posting this from Montague Street in London, which is where I've spent the last five days. London is not full of idiots; it's full of glories unhoped for. Highlights: hanging out with the marvelous Ms. DeVere. Writing a sex scene and then finding out that while I was distracted, the U.S. Supreme Court was busy ruling in favor of marriage equality. London Pride week. And getting hugged by Simon Amstell. Three times. I know. I can't believe it either.


	27. The Unexpected Guest

“Mother of God,” said John.  He was blissed out, shagged out, and generally out to lunch. If there was a preposition _du jour,_ it was “out.”

Or maybe “on”?   Because there was certainly a lot of _that_ going around. The grey aspic bed lay on the floor; John lay on the bed; Sherlock lay on John.  While pre-sex John had viewed this stacking quality with equanimity, fucked-out John was immensely pleased.  There was a certain harmony to it.  It was like one of those children’s songs where everything was cheerfully recursive. _“There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea_ ,” thought John. Then he giggled, because really, more to the point was the hole in the bottom of John.  

“That … was … _extraordinary_ ,” panted Sherlock.  His body language consisted of great heaviness (“Ugh,” protested his boyfriend) about the torso and legs, combined with small flutterings in the fingers and toes. He was like a bird who’d flown directly into a window and discovered he liked it.

“It was, yeah.” 

John felt the gentle motion of the spacecraft beneath him. It was amazing just how fast and far a military-strength jelly dessert could go.  Although cuffed to the furniture and unable to engage in his usual post-coital washing-up, John had rarely felt that so much was right with the universe. 

There was an amiable silence, broken by an uncharacteristically optimistic request from Sherlock.

"You're not getting a cigarette," said John. There weren't any. Sherlock's tobacconist was in Camden. Had Keith Richards looked into alien abduction? Because John had never seen anything prevent drug relapse more conclusively than being six light years away from a reliable stash.

“Cruel,” announced Sherlock, without departing from his stunned, contented demeanor.  “Cruel, unusual doctor.”  Deprived of celebratory nicotine, he began to satisfy his oral fixation by nibbling on John’s ear.

John recognized the origins of the ear-chewing habit at once.  Sherlock had picked it up from the pandas. Where had the pandas picked it up? Perhaps they'd developed the habit as a way of dealing with their own addictions. Because captive pandas used mind-altering substances too — ohhh, yes. As a young man, John had seen Ming Ming and Bao Bao at the London Zoo and immediately known that something was up. Maybe they had access to fermented fruit, or maybe the zookeepers were putting something in the blueberry muffins to keep them active for the punters. Either way, something was making them suspiciously frolicsome.

“I don’t care who is it,” John said.  “No one gets _that_ excited about a tire swing while sober.”

Sherlock blinked. “What?”

“I said, ‘Gerroff,’” said John, who had said nothing of the kind.  “I’m a wonderful doctor. I care deeply about your lungs. Also, I just fucked you. Try getting that from the NHS.”

“In all technical respects, I fucked _you_.”

“Honestly, you troglodyte.  Welcome to the twenty-first century.   Just because I was on the bottom doesn’t mean you were the only one having sex.  I fucked you right back.”

Speaking of “back,” something was now poking into John’s.  This was a testament to his fellow biped’s appreciation for all things tea-scented and obstreperous. 

“In retrospect,” an impossibly low voice muttered into John’s shoulder, “you did seem very much involved.”

“Mmph,” said John.  He mentally patted himself on the back for his level of involvement. Sure, he’d been a bit nervous beforehand, but when the moment came he’d been focused and sure and vibrant with adrenalin. It was like war, but without any of the downsides.  As for Sherlock, he’d been sweetly tentative, which was good, until he wasn’t, which was _fantastic_. Being on the business end of Sherlock’s libido had left John boneless and floating.  His brain was awash with every happy chemical known to doctor-kind, and for the moment, orgasm was irrelevant.  It was heaven just listening to Sherlock talk. 

 _Talking_ , thought John. _Sherlock is talking.  How is he able to talk_? 

“Hang on a tick.  Where did your gag go?”

“My, aren’t _you_ a kinky one?  It’s over there, in the corner.  Whatever do you want it for?” 

“I don’t.  How’d you get it off?”

“Bit through it.”

“Really,” said John.

“Really,” drawled Sherlock in the posh voice that was — after his genius, his height, and nine or ten other things — his most formidable gift. For the average person, a vowel was the shortest distance between two consonants, but a Sherlockian vowel, when stretched to the breaking point, was enough to evoke eight hours somewhere in the vicinity of Kensington. In the blink of an eye, John saw biscuit samples in Harrods, a skinny dip in Hyde Park, the merry evasion of several interested constables, and the crowd belting out “Jerusalem” at Last Night of the Proms.

“OK,” he said.  “Maybe I’m wrong about this — I’m so lathered up on neurotransmitters it’s a wonder I’m not seeing Jesus in the floor jelly — but didn’t you try chomping through that thing for an hour earlier today?”

“Eugh.  Yes.” Sherlock scraped his tongue against his top incisors, remembering the taste. 

 “And you got nowhere.  I watched.  You got nowhere whatsoever.”

 “That was before I had an orgasm.”

“Oh.” 

The Army had decreased John's Embarrassment Quotient something fierce. He was typically staunch in the face of pillow talk, but Sherlock, in a certain mood, could make anything mortifying. The mood in question wasn’t even especially dirty.  _More oblivious than lascivious_ , John thought. Lascivious Sherlock was often charmingly awkward, while Oblivious Sherlock could talk about dental floss and leave the listener with a raging case of arousal and a desire to sink through the floor. John readied his stock of protective monosyllables.

“Before somebody _gave_ me an orgasm,” said Sherlock, proudly displaying a newfound interest in acknowledging his partner’s role in the proceedings.

“Ah,” said John, going pink about the ears.

“In part, by making noises.  _Unhinged_ noises, John.”

“Um.”  When John mentally played back his own sex noises, “unhinged” didn’t begin to cover it.  He sounded like a hedgehog having a pillow fight to the death with a mongoose.

“Also by wiggling his quite brilliant arse.”

“Oh my God.”  The owner of the brilliant arse was now the color of a cheap sandwich bar’s awning, its banquettes, and half the tiles on its checkerboard floor.

“Who knew that talent could reside in an arse?” demanded Sherlock.  “Hands, yes; brain, certainly; but this?” Here he gave the body part in question a brisk pat. “It boggles the imagination. Nevertheless, the evidence stands.”

This was too much, even for John. He gave himself over to a small coughing fit.   Sherlock bounced on top of him so as to knock it loose.

“I don’t suppose you could have a few more orgasms,” managed John, once the fit had passed.  “It’s just that I’m still attached to the bed by two ankles and both wrists.” 

They were about to work on freeing John through the power of teeth-gnashing when a golden shadow spread over the far wall.

John craned his neck.  “Heads up.  We have company.”

“Good God,” said Sherlock.  “It’s Ut.”

John was delighted.  “Ut!  Welcome back, you great refugee from the Haribo plant!  Where’ve you been?  You’ll have to excuse me for not getting up.” 

The visitor squidged closer. John could see him better now. He was tall and pale gold in color, with an umber triangle in his head and a variety of polygons — hexagons included — tumbling about on his communicative plate.  He looked like his usual self, except that he was painfully thin. He called the captives by name and waved his tentacles at them.

“Cancel that,” said Sherlock, after talking with the guest for a moment.  “It’s not Ut. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘Not exactly’? If it’s not Ut, who the heck is it?”

“You’re familiar with mitosis?”

“Do you have _any_ idea what I do for a living?  Yes. It’s a type of cell division.”

“So.  Humans are restricted in their ability to do it.  It’s how we create new red blood cells, but we can’t use it to create new arms or legs.   Keplerians can do it with their entire bodies.”

John whistled in the guest’s direction. “Really?  Well done.  Must simplify the whole dividing process, having that body type. You know, the trifle body type. No offense, mate, but you’re a jiggly blob with bits in.” 

“Yes, and so are we, except we consist of many of them, and he consists of one.  He’s quite cellular in structure.   As you will no doubt have guessed, just before Ut and Oh left the ship, Ut split in two. The result was two separate but identical beings.  This twin, if you will, stayed behind to look after us.”

“So where’s he been all this time?”

“As it turns out, mostly hiding.”

“Please tell me this is code for rallying the troops.”

Sherlock shook his head. “Think about it.  You were running around with a hostage, and I was being tortured by a giant slug with an eyeball fixation.   Like the original Ut, Ut II is essentially a babysitter, and a timid one at that. Given his skill set, what would he be able to do for us under such dangerous circumstances?”

“Is the answer you're looking for 'Not bloody much'?”

“Precisely.  To be fair, just being spotted by upper-caste Keplerians would be enough to put him in danger.  He’s a Triangle with hexagons in his middle.  As such, he represents evidence of an illegal relationship.”

John allowed himself a quiet tirade of profanity. Sherlock chattered more with their guest, then reported back.

“He stowed himself in a supply cupboard. Since then, he’s done …”

“… Just about bugger all,” said John. “Got it.  What brought him out of hiding?  Also, can we call him something other than Ut II?”

“He has information for us,” said Sherlock. His fingers flew as he easily held conversations with members of two different species at once. “What’s wrong with Ut II? It’s precise.”

“It’s robotic, that’s what.  How about Chip?”

“Chip?”

“For ‘Chip off the Old Block.’”

This elicited an agonized groan from Sherlock.

“Right, then,” said John. “Let’s at least call him ‘ _New_ Umber Triangle.’  I don’t want to mix him up with the other one.”

“And have him be ‘Nut’ for short? Certainly not. Chip it is.”

Sherlock continued to debrief Chip with his waving fingers. 

“Honestly,” muttered John.   “I should have known that they could split in two without ill effects.”

“Why?”

“During the hostage situation, Plum Duff left me holding a pile of goo.  I was hanging onto one of his tentacles, and it went liquid.  I shook the stuff off my hands.  To think it might have regenerated and become a whole Keplerian! That goo is probably attending kindergarten now.”

“It’s more likely that it’s remained a bit of slime and been trampled into the carpet.  When Ut divided, his crowning, communicative, and emotional polygons doubled, then split in two. That's why Chip has a complete functioning set. I doubt Duff’s tentacular goo had the benefit of polygonal fission.  In any case, I should have suspected that we were dealing with a case of mitosis long before Chip showed up.”

“Oh?”

“Scar showed me footage of Ut and Oh leaving the ship in a transportation pod.   At the time, Ut was extremely thin.  I now realize that he was exactly half his usual volume.”

“So what’s Chip say?”

“It took him a while to find us. A Triangle childminder stumbled across him in the cupboard and told him we’d been taken to sector Heptagon. Then he had to figure out a way to get here.  He ended up making friends with the Triangle who cleans the prison floors.”

“Whew,” said John.  “Do _not_ underestimate the Triangle News Network. You ignore that shit at your peril.”

“Fortunately, the information that Ut left a twin on board doesn’t seem to have spread to the higher castes. A lot of the Triangles know, but it hasn’t gone any further than that.” 

“Thank heavens for tiny fonts. Where are Ut and Oh now?”

“Chip isn’t sure.  They should have been back a while ago.”

“Um, back from where, exactly?”

“Oh had a plan for drumming up support somewhere. Chip calls the place Umber-Square-Plum-Triangle-Big-Plum-Polygon.   He doesn’t know where it is, and I don’t know what the name is in English.  There probably isn’t one.”

“Can’t he contact them?” 

“He doesn’t dare. Guards are monitoring transmissions. Anything he said would lead them to the guilty parties on both ends.”

“Does he have any insight into what’s going to happen to us?”

“As expected, we’re going to trial.” Sherlock paused to elicit more information, then relayed it back to John.  “He recommends that we speak as little as possible when cross-examined. Keplerians expect that any untoward thoughts or motivations will be instantly broadcast across the defendant’s abdomen. If none are broadcast, they’ll tend to assume there aren’t any.  Habit.”

“That’s me sorted,” said John. “As far as they’re concerned, I can’t talk. But what about you?”

“Indeed.  What about me?”

“Are you going to mouth off?  Because I feel quite, quite sure that this is not a situation where you should mouth off.”

“Certainly not.  I’m merely going to point out the facts.”

"See that?” asked John.  “Yes, that.  That’s _exactly_ what I’m afraid of.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Monumental thanks to **Ariane DeVere** , who did a brilliant job betaing this with her trademark speed and grace. You're a wonder, Ariane. Any remaining errors are due to the author’s tea-scented obstreperousness. 
> 
> Did you know that Ariane’s LiveJournal page now offers [downloadable transcripts](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/79626.html) for all the BBC Sherlock episodes? They’re an indispensable resource for writers, readers, English as a Second Language learners, and people handy with a CTRL+F command alike.
> 
> As always, much appreciation to followers, commenters, and shy persons holed up with this on the train. However it expresses itself, your involvement keeps me going. Thank you.


	28. Aria

"Right," said John. "We need a plan. What are the charges against us?"

Sherlock shot John an incredulous look. "The usual, I should think. Broken headlight. Mass murder. Littering."

"I'm not asking you. I'm asking him." John nodded towards Chip, whose peripheral shapes were tumbling about in a veritable Cirque de Soleil of anxiety. "If we're going to get through this, we need to look at the situation from a Keplerian point of view. See things the way they do. We need to know the facts on the ground. Let’s not stumble through a hot zone without any intel like a couple of idiots.”

"That's your trick, isn't it? You cut through opposition with empathy and general goodwill. Infiltration via friendliness. Mirror neurons as evolutionary advantage.”

John grinned. "So I like them! Not all of them, maybe – I wasn’t keen on Scar, and I’m still pissed off at Duff about the milking thing and everything else. But Ut and Oh and Chip and anyone who’s not actively threatening you, yeah. I can’t help it if that’s useful. Come on, translate for me."

Like the former safecracker he was, Sherlock limbered up his fingers and set to work.

"Chip's cleaning friend says there's been a lot of talk in this sector about us aiding and abetting Ut and Oh," he reported. "Everybody's talking about intercaste sex. Some of the Keplerians are getting ideas."

"What kind of ideas?"

"Licentious ones. Nobody knew that a Hexagon _could_ bond with a Triangle. Overall, there's a sense of outrage, but some of our captors are quietly intrigued."

"I'll bet," said John. "All right, so that's the main issue, the intercaste sex. Inviting Ut and Oh back to the Shag Palace was your idea, but I stand by it. It's a stupid law."

"Far be it from me to criticize," said Sherlock, "but you're not going to get anywhere by calling cherished institutions 'stupid.'"

"I know, that's your gig. Still, the law is ..."

"Moronic?"

"Yes. What else have they got on us?"

"The beam of energy that apparently resulted from Ut and Oh's coupling messed up a wall."

"Bugger the wall. It took the wall roughly five minutes to melt back together. They have self-fixing walls. What else?"

When Sherlock prompted Chip to continue, his midsection turned the color of Beaujolais nouveau.

"He didn't want to bring this up, but the word on the street is that you and I have been misleading Keplerian scientists about our own intent to mate."

"Oh, for God's sake. Define 'mate.' I mean, isn't that part of the problem here? Are we talking about 'mate' as in having sex, or 'mate' as in having sex for the purpose of producing children?"

When his translator was still avidly signing a minute later, John narrowed his eyes.

"Sherlock. What are you telling him?"

Sherlock couldn't prevent the question mark from escaping his larynx. "Nothing?"

"You're not gearing up to tell him you just shagged me into the mattress, are you?"

"Well," said Sherlock frostily, his feigned innocence replaced with very real indignation. "I suppose if you're _ashamed_ of the fact …"

"For crying out loud, that's _not_ it. You know perfectly well it isn't. Sherlock, he passes out when we kiss. Why on earth … OK, I know why, but can you not? Don't parade your sexual prowess in front of him. He’s our friend, and he’s our only source of information. We can't afford to have him spend the rest of the week as a zesty broth."

"Prowess," muttered Sherlock. He beamed.

"Cripes. Can we get back on track here? We don't know when the guards are coming back. What else do they have on us?"

"Besides the lying? The lying charge is fairly serious, John."

"I know. But they need to consider the language barrier. This all started because I put a cross in a circle for Ut and told him to piss off. I was trying to tell him that if he wanted us to get to know each other, he should give us some space. I wasn't promising we'd have twins by spring. Tell Chip there's a difference between lying and miscommunication."

Sherlock relayed this idea. While lying was anatomically impossible for Chip, he was familiar with the idea of miscommunication. Even transparent creatures could ignore or misread each other's pronouncements.

"Chip says wants to know if the rumor that you held Plum Duff hostage is a miscommunication."

"Uh, no. I actually did that."

"Now he's asking if you were responsible for the death of a scientist. Possibly several scientists."

John sighed. "Yes. Why does everyone want to keep bringing that up? They were arseholes, all right?"

"Is that what you want me to say?"

"Yes."

Chip's sides shook.

"He's laughing," Sherlock pointed out.

"I'm glad somebody's enjoying this. Anything else?"

"Development of a salt weapon. Helping two Keplerians create a clear and present threat to the social order through unlawful intimacy. Treason. That's about it."

"Great."

"I ought to be able to shoot down the treason charge. We can't commit treason against a civilization we don't belong to."

"Argh," said John, kicking at his cot in frustration. "I wish I could talk with Chip directly."

"You can't."

"Scratch that. I wish I could talk with everyone on board directly."

"You can't do that either." Sherlock restrained himself from announcing that this woeful state of linguistic ignorance was the natural result of John spending his free time breaking globs of firm jelly off the blackcurrant bed and practicing football moves with them.

John mulled the situation over. "Push me," he said.

"What do you mean, 'push you'?"

"When I kicked the cot, it moved forward an inch. It's not attached to the floor. Push it forward."

"You do realize this is ridiculous." Sherlock got behind John's cot and shoved.

"Not all language is verbal," said John. "OK, straighten me out."

In response to Captain Watson's orders, Sherlock maneuvered the cot until it was flush with the clear gelatinous wall that separated them from Chip. John rotated his wrist, which was still cuffed to the cot, and pressed his palm against the wall. Then he drew his fingers together into a cone. This made his hand look pointed and unitary, like a tentacle.

Chip came closer. He seemed to be peering at John intently. Then he held up a tentacle and pressed it against John's, with only the wall in between. After a while, Chip put his tentacle down, and John dropped his hand.

"What are you doing?" said Sherlock.

"There's a fight coming. I'm telling him — in my own way, thank you — that I'm on his side."

"You mean the fight about what to do with us? Or the fight about what to do with Ut and Oh? Because I'm not sure there's a fight over any of that. We've broken local laws, and we're going to pay. I think what's going to happen is fairly clear-cut."

"I don't think it is. I think it's a fight if we want it to be. Not just you and me 'we.' Triangles, Squares and Pentagons 'we.' Everybody 'we.'"

Chip's peripheral shapes tumbled and dove like aerialists without a net.

"I know," said John. "I get it, mate. That's how I was at Kandahar."

An olive hexagon appeared on Chip's communicative plate. It was surrounded by small, jittery polygons, but the hexagon itself was rock steady.

Sherlock began to translate. "He says …"

John's eyes were fixed on the hexagon in Chip's middle. "He's talking about his husband."

"Bondmate," corrected Sherlock. "Since when do you understand Keplerian syntax? Or any words beyond 'yes' and 'thank you,' for that matter?"

"I don't have to. He's saying what anybody would say when forcibly separated from his partner."

Sherlock nodded. He was relieved not to have to relay this part of Chip's speech. Most of it was expressed as pure emotion. There was anger at being separated, terror at what might have happened to his lover, and pure desire to see him again. The speech was passionate and desperate and operatic in its yearning. When he tried mentally translating it into sound, all Sherlock could come up with was a violin rendition of "Dido's Lament."

John let out a long exhale. "OK," he said. "Chip needs to raise an army."

Sherlock blinked, wondering whether his partner's newfound lunacy was a trick of the light.

"John, I'm not sure you're understanding what his core competencies are."

"I'm not sure _you're_ understanding what they are. Didn't you tell me that adding hexagons to a Triangle's vocabulary would allow him to say new things, think new thoughts, engage in new behaviors? And didn't you suggest that these new abilities would relate specifically to combat? Well, here's Chip. If your hypothesis is right, we're dealing with the only Keplerian on board with the watchfulness of a Triangle and the military know-how of a Hexagon. In my book, that's a recipe for part-spy, part-general."

Chip held absolutely still, waiting to find out what John was saying. His posture was upright, expectant.

 _Excuse us a moment_ , signed Sherlock. _My mate has lost his mind_.

"Look," continued John, "I don't know when or if Olive Hexagon is coming back, but if Chip wants to help him, he's got to start using this stuff. First off, by organizing his Triangle contacts on the ship."

"His contacts? You mean the childminder who found him in the cupboard and the one who scrubs the prison floors?"

"You've said it yourself: thoughts spread quickly here. There's no deception or concealment to stop them from spreading. The only speed bumps are the vocabulary and font differences that divide the castes. If Chip wants other Triangles to get angry about the laws that keep them second-class citizens, all he has to do is get out there and start talking to them."

"And how is he going to do that? The moment a non-Triangle sees the hexagons on his belly, he'll be taken into custody."

"I don't know. Ask him."

"I beg your pardon. Are you telling me to ask our babysitter what the plan is?"

"We're just tourists here. This is his culture. He's the one who understands how it works. Ask."

Feeling exceptionally put upon, Sherlock asked.

"Megmas," he reported back, with only a little sulkiness.

Now it was John's turn to blink. "What's that?"

Sherlock sighed. "Fermented goo. Jelly kebabs. 'We wish you a merry Megmas and a happy New Year.'"

"It's a holiday?"

"It's _the_ holiday. It's a celebration of the continual rebirth of Megagon, Defeater of Entropy and Circumventer of Chaos. Megmas is when the Keplerians prepare feasts in her honor. To prove their fealty to her, they invite all their relatives over and refrain from throwing them out the airlock."

"Blimey."

"Indeed. Blimey. Naturally, everyone's very busy during this time — nobody more so than the Triangles. If, for example, a Triangle were constantly carrying things here and there — a pile of freshly washed sleep coverings, say, or a stack of Camparian fruit discs — nobody would think twice about not being able to see his communicative plate. Chip would be able to squidge about undetected. All the Triangles would."

"That's a tactical advantage, all right. When does it start?"

"One sleep cycle. Chip says he's got to go. The guards will be coming back from dinner."

"All right. Please tell him thank you. And good luck."

As Sherlock struggled to relay five circles of gratitude with only two hands, Chip once again pressed his tentacle to the wall. This time, he let the end split into five small pieces, like human fingers emanating from a palm. Deeply moved, John returned the gesture. Then Chip was gone.

"One of your sleep cycles," mused John. "That's three Earth days. We've got to figure out a way to back him up. Will our trial be over by then?"

"Absolutely. Chip told me so. It's part of why he wants to have the army by then."

"That's good news."

"Yes and no," said Sherlock. "Megmas is when they hold the public executions."


	29. The Trial Begins

“Hurry,” said John.

“Ah EM hrraengh,” replied Sherlock. He was gnawing his way through the last of John’s bonds, the one on his right wrist.

"Come on.  I want to be up and at ‘em before the welcoming committee gets back.”

“Ergh,” said Sherlock, sourly. He spat out a wad of hard jelly.   “ _You_ try chewing your way through this stuff. It’s not exactly the lemon mousse at the Café Royal.”

John felt like a bad partner.   Why hadn’t he offered to give Sherlock four more orgasms, one for each of the rubbery cuffs securing him to the bed? There were time considerations, yes, but getting off seemed to add extra power to the man's bite, and it certainly made him happier.

“You take a break. I’ll get this one.” John nudged Sherlock’s head out of the way with his own and bit down.

He had just gotten free when two prison guards returned from lunch. Immediately, the smaller one clapped tentacles on Sherlock and dragged him towards the door.

John rose to his feet. “Hang on a tick. Where d’you think …”

The tall guard laid John out on the floor with a blow that had to be felt to be believed. The pain was sharply focusing.  John staggered to a crouch. 

"You fucking pails of wank. Where the bollocks do you think you're taking him?"

He was about to execute a spectacularly ill-advised rugby tackle on the guard who had backhanded him, for some definitions of "hand," when Sherlock shook his head.

"John, please. Do _not_ make trouble for yourself. I'll see you at trial."

John hesitated. "I don't like it," he grumbled, as the tall guard opened the door to the cell.

"You don't have to like it. You just have to stop running full-tilt into things made of non-Newtonian fluids. "

"Tell these arseholes I'm only backing off because you said 'please.' And tell them to bring you back in good shape, or I'll bite their arsing nuts off."

As the short guard bustled his captive towards the door, Sherlock allowed his eyes to dip towards the tall guard's smooth and unadorned middle.

"You're _sure_ you're a doctor," he intoned.

For the third time that day, the sight of Sherlock's smile lines hit John hard.

He hadn't had smile lines when John met him. Now he did, and their deployment rendered John speechless with fiery, implacable love every time he saw them. He closed his eyes for a moment and let the image of the fine wrinkles emanating from the corners of Sherlock's eyes turn into arcs exploding from the center of a firework, projectiles shooting from the barrel of a rocket launcher, red bullets exploding from the quadruple chambers of his locked and loaded heart.

"Very sure. When's trial?"

"Tomorrow," called Sherlock. "Try not to hurt anybody until then."

John made no promises. He pressed himself against the transparent wall of the cell and glared at the two guards as they led Sherlock down the hall. When they disappeared from view, he sat down on the floor of his cell. Immobility succeeded in pissing him off further. He turned onto his front and counted off push-ups while his arms burned.

John's mental push-up counter had stopped incrementing by the time the two guards returned. His language skills were limited (here, his inner Sherlock piped up, " _Nonexistent_ "), and he wasn't able to get any information out of the guards before they tossed a haggard Keplerian into his cell and left. The creature fell heavily to the floor, his peripheral shapes barely stirring.

John noticed the Umber Hexagon on his new cellmate's head. "Soldier, huh? What're you in for?"

He sat down next to his new cellmate and drew a hexagon in the gelatinous floor in greeting. He was mildly surprised when the Keplerian flashed a Silver Circle across his communicative plate in response.

John eyed his cellmate carefully. "How do you know my name? Have we met?"

The Keplerian sat up and began talking in earnest. John didn't understand a word he said.

"Sorry, mate. No idea what you're on about. _Pa de ze ne pohegem_."

Speaking Pashto, if only to say he didn't understand, lifted John's spirits a bit. ( _Take_ that, _inner Sherlock_.) He drew three diamonds of Keplerian incomprehension on the floor. They remained visible for a while, then slowly melted back into nothingness.

The new cellmate slumped against the wall. He seemed to have given up on talking with John. The creature wasn't a healthy color. As a Hexagon, he should have been a tawny amber, but he was roughly the color of cat piss. John suspected the prison guards had not been gentle with him.

"Want a drink? My partner hasn't been drinking his soup." John pushed a bowl towards his new cellmate. "Wayward bugger. Him, not you."

The cellmate was apparently parched. He flashed John five circles of gratitude, then put a tentacle in the soup and drank. Satisfied, he pushed the soup back towards John. John took a swig and coughed.

" _That_ packs a punch. Argh! Blimey. Why so boozy? The old recipe didn't ferment."

The cellmate helped himself to a bit more. His color was already improving.

"Call me crazy, but I liked the old recipe," said John, taking another hit. His veins were weirdly radiant and he was in a confessional mood. "It reminded me of the broth that comes with udon noodles. Plus you could make a bomb with it. Can't get that at Wagamama."

The cellmate responded with a mellifluous belch. This must have coincided with a braingasm, because he reached out a tentacle and drew a long, undulating line on the floor.

John tilted his head at it. "Eh?"

The Keplerian drew two round circles on top of the line. Below the line, he drew what appeared to be two human bodies, one tall and one appropriately proportioned, thank you very much.

"Me," said John. He pointed at the appropriately proportioned stick figure. Then he made a circle with the fingers of his left hand and held it to his forehead, where it served as a crowning shape. "Silver Circle. Me."

He was rewarded with an umber square for his trouble. _Yes_ , said his cellmate.

"And the other one is Plum Cross. Sherlock." John pointed at the tall stick figure, then made a cross with his index fingers.

Another umber square from his cellmate. _Yes_.

The picture on the floor was starting to fade, so John and the Keplerian poked it into the jelly again, this time with more force.

"Right," said John. "What's this wavy line? Sound wave? Blast wave?" He pointed at the long, semi-horizontal line that appeared to cut him and Sherlock off at head height. Then he drew three more confused diamonds on the floor. They were becoming his signature shape.

The cellmate's peripheral shapes spun with Sherlockian impatience. He drew various shapes under the wavy line, then drew two Keplerians with large crowning hexagons off to the side. As the pièce de resistance, he drew three heavy, wiggly lines entwined with each other next to the two humans. There was no mistaking them. The lines fairly buzzed with coital energy.

"Snakes," said John. "Midorian fire snakes. This wavy thing is — d'oh! — a wave, yeah? A regular wave. As in water. The wiggly things are snakes. These other shapes are animals having a soak. Fuck me, are these pandas? Nice one, mate. Good definition on the, uh, component blobs."

As if understanding John's emotional state, the cellmate glowed with biofluorescent modesty. But how would a Keplerian decipher human emotions? John thought about Sherlock's comment, during the bonding ceremony, that Oh experienced a specific internal vibration when in Ut's presence, and vice-versa. Perhaps humans, like Keplerians, also gave off vibrations. If so, could Keplerians read these vibrations for clues to who a person was and what he was feeling? John felt more and more certain that humans and Keplerians could communicate in ways beyond the purely linguistic.

"So. Here we are, the three of us. I'm in the water. Sherlock is with me. And you're at the side of the cleansing pool."

John pointed at one of the Keplerian soldiers in the drawing. It was, he thought, the better looking of the two. Then he pointed at his cellmate.

This earned him three umber squares, twirling and leaping in the middle of his cellmate's soup. _Yes yes yes_.

"Good Cop! How are you? Sorry I didn't recognize you. What'd you do to get yourself thrown in here, you old bastard? It's good to see you again."

Drink made John more than usually sentimental. He threw his arms around his companion and hugged him. For a split second, the companion looked confused. Then he returned the gesture with four affectionate tentacles, including two manufactured expressly for the purpose.

"We'll be all right," said John, once the hug was over. "We're soldiers, yeah? Our kind sticks together. 'In Arduis Fidelis' and all that."

He drew a hexagon on the ground. He pointed from the hexagon to his cellmate, then from the hexagon to himself. Rarely had John spent so much of one day indicating things with his hands. He was beginning to feel like Vanna White.

"See? Soldiers. Comrades in arms." He woozily patted his own chest, then the chest of Good Cop.

This caught Good Cop's interest. A silver circle appeared in his midriff, flanked by a military hexagon. _You're a soldier?_

"Hell yes." Without realizing he was doing it, John sat up straight, sucked in his stomach, and threw back his shoulders. Then, with enormous gravity, he dipped his finger in soup and painted a hexagon on his forehead with it.

Good Cop's peripheral shapes began to do cartwheels with excitement.

The next thing John knew, the Keplerian was gently tracing the painted hexagon with one tentacle. This wasn’t like being grabbed by Plum Duff, whose touch had felt like being assaulted with a rubber octopus. Being touched by Good Cop was different. The contact was enjoyable. It was unexpectedly warm, with a bit of suction. There was something familiar about it.

"Oh my God," said John, giggly and incredulous. "What was that? Did … did you just do a _body shot_ off my forehead?"

He placed his hand to his brow, and sure enough, the hexagon was gone. Good Cop had slurped it off him.

Afterwards, everything was a bit of a blur. There was more talking and more drawing. More hugging. Possibly more slurping. Then it was morning, and John was rampagingly hung-over, and Good Cop was gone.

* * *

"I don't know what you did to your lawyer," said Sherlock a few hours later at trial, "but he _adores_ you." His voice was crisp and disapproving.

John peered about. He and Sherlock were on display in a transparent box in the center of the courtroom. To their left, several meters away, was a throng of priests, identifiable by their crowning squares. In front was a crowd of scientists. And to their right was a collection of soldiers. But on the floor behind them, there was no one. All the Triangles were missing.

In the space between the humans and the onlookers, a Heptagonal creature — perhaps a prosecutor? — orbited their box, looking severe. John's former cellmate orbited the box too, like another, kinder moon.

"Ungh," groaned John. "That's my _lawyer_? I thought he was Good Cop from the pool."

"He _is_ Good Cop from the pool. Nobody wanted to be your attorney, and there is no dedicated barrister class. They held a lottery yesterday. His number came up."

The grim light of day poked John in the eye. "But he's a _lifeguard_."

"He's a soldier. He adapts to whatever position his superiors place him in. Normally, he protects order at the pool. Now he's supposed to be protecting order by participating in your trial. However, he’s currently exhibiting besottedness to the point of near incapacitation. Why do you suppose that is, John?"

John pawed his aching head. "I'm sure you're exaggerating."

They watched as Good Cop delivered an impassioned plea to the jury. The only part John understood was "Silver Circle." At the moment, it appeared to be one of Good Cop's favorite words. Even for a defense attorney, he was using it a lot.

"Oh, for God's sake! Did you _see_ that?" demanded Sherlock. "He just told the jury you're too beautiful to die."

"Okaaay. Unusual tactic. Is it working?"

"Somewhat. Keplerians are nothing if not susceptible to groupthink." Sherlock should have sounded pleased, but he sounded more annoyed than ever. "Did you fuck him?"

"Are you out of your mind? No, I didn't fuck him!"

"Did …"

"NO! He drank some fermented soup off my forehead and we hugged. It was that kind of thing. You know. Two mates at a stag do."

Sherlock knew nothing about two mates at a stag do. "John, precisely how well do you remember events that occur when you're drunk?"

"I don't have to remember. I wouldn't fuck around on you."

"Mmm," said Sherlock. It was what he would have said if somebody had pointed out that there was a cockroach under the sink, except that he would have been more enthusiastic about the cockroach.

"'Mmm,' my arse," said John. "He wasn't coercive with me, and there are things I wouldn't be up for no matter how drunk I was. I wouldn't slap my Gran, I wouldn't vote UKIP, and I wouldn't cheat on you. You're my mate."

And with that, John seized Sherlock by the cheekbones and kissed him.

Keplerians do not communicate via sound, and a Keplerian courtroom is invariably silent. How then, was John able to sense a hush falling over the crowd? When the kiss was over, he looked around and found that a number of communicative plates had gone completely blank.

Good Cop had gone pale again. A court officer led him away.

"Your advocate is taking a short break," drawled Sherlock. His body language was now relaxed, and he was dabbing at his lips with a daintiness rare in someone so blunt. "Something appears to have upset him."

"No doubt," said John, feeling a pang of regret at having hurt his cellmate's feelings. Clearly one creature's stag do was another creature's hot date. "What now?"

"Witnesses," said Sherlock. "The prosecutor is introducing somebody."

"Who?"

"We're getting to that! Pentagon of some sort. Scientist."

"Is it one of the engineers who was responsible for patching the hole in the ship and generally getting things working again?"

"I think not."

"Thank heavens. Those people must _hate_ us."

The humans watched the prosecutor talk. She was the highest-ranking Keplerian John had ever seen, and her communicative polygons were huge. Consequently, she could only get out a few words at a time before the screen on her midriff was full. It took her ages to say anything.

"Bigwig," muttered Sherlock.

"The prosecutor?"

"The witness. At the top of his caste, apparently. Very high-powered. He's taken Scar's old job."

"Sounds import—" said John. And then he stopped talking, right in the middle of a word, because they'd just led in the new Head of Xenobiology.

It was Plum Duff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Thanks to guest beta **Mr. Mirith** for providing super-quick proofreading. Happy Leap Day!


	30. Nimble. Grumble. Assemble. Trouble.

On the night that John was busy inadvertently entrancing his lawyer, a shadowy figure with a triangle on his head and hexagons in his middle started to raise an army. Recruitment began at the Nightly Triangles-Only Wash in the huge communal pool in the ship's basement.

If you were going to raise an army before bed, the Wash was the place to start. For one thing, attendance, though not mandatory, was nearly universal. It was the last activity before dreamtime, and it was the highlight of the Triangle day. Of all the castes on board, the Triangles were the fondest of the Wash, because their jobs involved the most grime. They worked hard caring for puddle children, fixing machines, making food, tending plants, cleaning corridors, and wrangling animals. At the end of all this, their tentacles were tired, and they loved having a soak, relaxing, and letting the accretions and secretions of the day dissolve around them.

For another thing, the segregated nature of the baths had the effect of leaving the Triangles completely free from upper-caste supervision for a short period of time. During working hours, they were generally busy serving their employers, but at night, they congregated with their fellows at the pool and talked about things that mattered. Segregation turned out to be a tool that Chip could use.

"Did you see that?" asked a young Keplerian mechanic. Her employers called her Olive Triangle, but everyone else called her Nimble. She was quick-witted and able to fix anything.

"See what?" said Jamble. She was the ship's head cook.

"You know the Triangle who bonded with the Hexagon? He was just here. I saw him. He said to meet him in the main kitchen after the Wash. Pass it on."

" _My_ kitchen?" said Jamble. "I can't have everyone running amok in there, trampling my ingredients. My crew is in the middle of preparing for Megmas. I am going to go give this oaf a piece of my gelatinous mind. Just who does he think he is?"

"I do not know," said Mumble, "but he is _not_ the one who bonded with the Hexagon." He was a childminder, shy and soft-spoken. His peripheral shapes immediately spun with regret for having said anything.

"I beg your pardon?" said Jamble, peering at his communicative font. Even by Triangular standards, it was almost too small to read.

"He is the twin Ut left behind. I found him in a supply cupboard the other day. Sorry. Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"Why did you not tell us?" asked Nimble. She loved information and hated to see its flow disrupted.

"Nobody asked," said Mumble, and that was all they could get out of him for the rest of the soak.

"Ut is back?" asked Bramble, splashing towards them. He was a gardener, and like some of his charges, a bit prickly and wild.

"Sorry to get your hopes up," said Nimble, who had heard the rumors. "It is his twin. He says to meet him in the main kitchen after the Wash. Pass it on."

Soon, hundreds of Triangles were gathered in the large kitchen in the bowels of the ship. They formed a wide ring around Chip. When that ring filled up, they formed another ring, then more rings still, until virtually every Triangle onboard was crammed into one kebab-scented room.

Amble, the prison janitor, was in the back. He craned his whole body, hoping for a glimpse of the speaker.

"Hello, who are you?" asked Nimble.

"I was — I _am_ — a friend of Ut's," said Amble.

"Ah!" said Nimble. "Then you know the gossip. Have you met Ut's Hexagon bondmate? How extraordinary to bond with a soldier!"

"The one called Oh? I have not met him, but Ut was extremely taken with him. He was all Ut talked about."

"What do you think of intercaste bonding?" asked Nimble. It was a daring subject, so she downsized her font into a whisper. "I never knew it was possible. I mean, perhaps with a Square. You know, like that gardener who ran away with the priest. But to bond with somebody three castes up? Incredible. I can scarcely believe it."

"It is very unusual," said Amble, philosophically. "And yet. Ut and Oh have not hurt anyone with their actions. Who is to judge?"

"I am," said Grumble. Like Amble, she was a janitor. "Who is this Triangle parading around with the hexagons in his middle? He thinks it makes him look fine, but it makes him look like a cheap whore. Trailing after an officer for sweets! He should be ashamed to show his crowning polygon in public."

"He is not the one who slept with the Hexagon; he is Ut's twin," said Amble. "And I will thank you not to talk about my friend like that. Ut is good-natured and sweet, and he is kind to everyone. He cannot help who he loves."

"He _should_ help it," said Grumble. "Imagine dating outside your caste like that. Disgusting. He is the one who blushes, is he not? He is right to blush. Mark my polygons: this kind of behavior will be the fall of civilization."

It was not within Amble's nature to fight. Instead, he turned his back on Grumble and pointedly directed his attention elsewhere. It was amazing just how pointed a creature made of jelly and curves could be.

"I do not think intercaste dating is so bad," confided Nimble. "A soldier. Imagine having all those new words at your disposal. The things you could say!"

"And the things you could do," replied Amble, who was glad to have an ally. "Although I admit, Ut's twin seems very shy for a soldier hybrid. I am the one who snuck him in so that he could visit the two bipeds in jail. He was shaking all over when I found him."

Chip was ready to start.

"Greetings," he said, a bit nervously. He had never done public speaking before. In fact, other than hide in a cupboard, he had done virtually nothing before.

"I am Chip," he continued. "Many of you knew Ut, the zookeeper who bonded with an officer. I am the part that Ut left behind when the two of them left the ship. Thank you all for coming. There is something we must discuss."

"Never mind all that," said Jamble, pushing her way to the front of the crowd. "What about my kitchen? I am making Megmas kebabs here. People depend on me and my crew for their holiday snacks. I cannot have everyone squidging all over the place, putting their tentacles wherever they please. The very idea! I have half a mind to send you all out the airlock."

Chip regarded the cook with great seriousness. "Good Jamble, nobody wants to interrupt your work." He rotated slowly on his axis in order to address the crowd. "Who is willing to help Jamble put kebabs together after we talk so that the work gets done?"

"I am," said Amble.

"Me too," said Nimble.

"I will also help," said Chip. He turned to face Jamble. "Do you accept the offer?"

Jamble placed two tentacles squarely on her non-existent hips.

"What do I see before me?" she asked. "A janitor, a mechanic, and a zookeeper's twin. You cannot handle Megmas kebabs. They are tricky and full of surprises."

Chip's peripheral shapes sank. "Then you refuse us the use of the room?"

"I did not say that," said Jamble, relenting. "Help me with the Camparian fruit discs and you have a deal."

"Agreed," said Chip. His peripheral shapes became buoyant again.

"Those of us in the back cannot see," complained Grumble.

Chip drew himself up to his full height. Because he was made of jelly, he was able to stretch quite a bit. Now his communicative plate was visible to all. "Is that better?" he asked.

"Better," agreed Amble.

"And worse," said Grumble. She did not like Chip at his regular height, and she liked him even less now that more of him was arrayed along the vertical axis.

"I will be frank," said Chip. "I am here to ask for your help."

"What do you need?" asked Bumble. Out of respect, the crowd held still while she talked. She was an old childminder who had raised many on board from puddlehood to adolescence.

"The Megmas executions are coming up."

"Hooray," said Grumble.

Nimble glared at him. "Hush," she said. She poked his midriff until the polygons in his offensive remark broke down into tiny pieces and returned to jelly. Amble gave her a grateful look.

"As you may have heard," continued Chip, "two of my friends, Silver Circle and Plum Cross, will almost certainly be killed then. I am asking you to prevent this from happening."

"What have they done?" asked Bumble, who had not heard the gossip.

"As you know, the law that says that we may not mate with members of other castes. The bipeds helped Ut, my other half, break that law by hosting the bonding ceremony between him and Oh, his soldier mate, when nobody else would."

"Aha!" said Grumble. "So you admit that they broke the law."

"The law needs to be broken," said Chip. "My friends acted out of respect for love. If the law is against love, and the people are for it, then who is in the wrong?"

"Love, schmove," sneered Grumble. "You do these creatures too much honor. They are not people, and they are not friends. They are foreigners and animals — nothing more, nothing less. That is why Ut was hired to keep them in line, is it not? He is not a diplomat. He is a zookeeper. That is, if he still lives."

"Of course he lives," said Amble. At first, his communicative polygons wobbled with uncertainty, but this passed.

Grumble paid him no mind. "I have seen this Silver Circle," she said, addressing the crowd. "I was washing the wall near the science lab when he came by. He was holding one of the scientists hostage with some kind of weapon. I was the one who pulled the alarm. If I had not pulled it, we would all be dead."

A wave of consternation swept through the crowd. The Triangles' peripheral shapes began zinging around their bodies like metal spheres in a pinball machine.

"Is this true?" asked Bumble. "Did Silver Circle take a scientist hostage?"

"He did," said Chip, "but only because the scientists had kidnapped his mate. Scar, the Head of Xenobiology, was holding him captive in the lab. She was torturing him. He was not the first creature to fall afoul of her attentions, but he was certainly the last. It is a wonder he survived."

"Torture!" said Grumble. "It is not torture if you do something to an animal. It is research."

"It is _not_ research," said Chip. He began to quiver with anger. "What does anyone hope to find out by stapling yet another extra-Keplerian to the wall?"

"Tell them about the deaths!" demanded Grumble.

"What deaths?" asked Bumble.

"Oh ho, so you have not heard? I suppose not, surrounded by children all day as you are. I grant you, it is not a fit topic for puddlings. The deranged animal Chip calls 'friend' killed three scientists. Furthermore, he put a hole in the side of the ship. He could have murdered us all. Is that what you want?"

"Merciful Meg," said Bumble. All crowning hexagons turned towards Chip.

"Nobody wants that," said Chip, firmly. "But we do not know exactly how the hole in the ship came to be. I know Silver Circle. While we cannot speak each other's language, I can read his vibration. He was trying to save the other biped from torture and death. He wanted Plum Cross to live. Why, then, would he put a hole in the ship on purpose?"

"Phooey," said Grumble. "He is a Keplicidal maniac, and I, for one, will be eating jelly kebabs at his execution. Who is with me?"

"I am with you," said Bramble. "Is this what we have come to, intercaste breeding and mass murder?"

"Excuse me," said Nimble. "Are you saying that intercaste breeding causes mass murder? Because what I see here is love and self-defense."

"'Intercaste breeding causes mass murder,'" repeated Bramble. "You are the one who said it. It is not my fault if I agree."

"What makes you so preoccupied with Ut's love life?" shot back Nimble, although she already had some idea.

"Never you mind," said Bramble, and he turned purple around the middle.

"You say that we do not know what caused the hole," said Humble. "I believe I know. I was asked to step in as zookeeper after you … I mean, after Ut left the ship. I spent some time looking after Silver Circle. He was very despondent over the kidnapping of the other biped. I feel sure that he took the scientist hostage because it was the only way he could think of to get back to Plum Cross. All he wanted was the release of his partner, but the scientists would not let him go. The biped did not mean to kill them. He was only trying to free his mate."

"How do you know this?" asked Nimble.

"The lab's cameras caught everything. My friend cleans the equipment there. She has seen the video. It is clear that Silver Circle did not mean to put a hole in the side of the ship. He applied some kind of solvent to his mate's bonds, and the solvent ended up destroying not only the bonds but part of the window."

"Then the biped did not mean to destroy the three scientists?" asked Bumble.

"He meant to destroy one," said Humble. "Scar, the one who would not stop torturing Plum Cross. The other two scientists tried to take him out, so he rendered them unconscious. They only died because of the accident with the window."

"This is hearsay and foolishness," said Grumble. "You are a zookeeper. Your love of animals has blinded you to what they are really like."

"If anything, love has _taught_ me what they are like," said Humble. "Silver Circle killed one scientist, rendered two scientists unconscious, and let two more go. The evidence shows that he only kills when he sees no other way of protecting his mate."

"We are talking in circles," said Nimble. "We know what Chip thinks. We know what Grumble thinks. Ditto for Humble and Bramble. Good Bumble, what do you think?"

"Here, here," said Amble, waving his tentacles in agreement.

"Chip," said Bumble. Her words were slow to appear on her communicative plate, because she chose them with care. "Your intentions are good, but this is something that the creatures must deal with themselves. This is not our fight."

"It _is_ our fight," said Mumble.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"The bipeds are in trouble because they helped one of us bond with an officer," he said. "Has anyone else stopped to consider why the higher-ups are so determined that we not mate outside our caste?"

"I have," said Nimble. "They do not want us to have the vocabulary that the other castes have. If we have more vocabulary, we have more ideas. If we have more ideas, we have more power. If we have more power, they have less. That is not something they want."

"Balderdash," said Grumble. "You are deviants, both of you. If you cannot see that like should be with like, then you cannot see very much at all."

"Excuse me," said Mumble. "How is it that you know so much about who should be with whom?"

"Be silent," snapped Grumble. "I have never heard such poppycock in my life."

"I am done being silent," said Mumble. "Tell me, what makes you an expert on relationships? Who exactly do you love? Your family? Your friends? Your co-workers? Your pets?"

"Do not be ridiculous," said Grumble. "I love no one."

"It shows," said Mumble, with icy clarity. "And you, Bramble. Who do you love?"

"None of your business," said Bramble, turning purple around the middle again.

"Fair enough," said Mumble, who had not spoken this much in years.

"Mumble makes an excellent point," said Chip. "Good Bumble, who do you love?"

Bumble considered this. "I love many," she said. "I love my mates, my friends, and all the puddle children that have been in my care. I love my plants. I love this ship."

"And is that a choice?" asked Chip.

"No," said Bumble. "I love them because they are lovable. There is no choice."

"I am getting the hang of this," said Nimble. "Good Jamble, you reign supreme here. Who do you love?"

"That one," said Jamble. She pointed four emphatic tentacles at Ramble, who had just squidged in the door. "I love several, but especially that one. Meg preserve me, he is the father of my puddle children."

"Did you pick him?" asked Nimble. "Did you logically decide that he was the best person, and pick him?"

"Certainly not!" said Jamble. "Look at how late he is! Logic had nothing to do with it."

"I love you too," said Ramble, amiably.

"How long are we going to let the higher-ups decide who we can be with?" asked Mumble.

"It is more than that," said Chip. "How long are we going to let them tell us where we can bathe? How long are we going to let them tell us what we can do for work, what we can say, what we can think? How long are we going to live like tenth-rate citizens?"

"Not bloody long," said Nimble.

"I have seen enough," said Grumble. "You are lowlifes and perverts. Whatever you are planning, I want no part of it. Mark my words, you all will get exactly what you deserve." And with that, she squidged out of the room.

"Does anyone else want to leave?" asked Chip. "I am asking you to rise up against a government that keeps the castes separate and stop the Megmas executions. The project will be dangerous, but it is just."

Five Keplerians left. Everyone else stayed.

"We have so few resources," said Amble. "I love Ut like a brother, Chip. You are part of him, and I will follow you to the ends of the universe. I just wish I had more to offer you."

"All of you, look at me," said Chip. "We are child minders, plant minders, zoo minders. We make food and fix machines. We take care of the ship and everyone on it. Each of us has something to offer. We just have to identify those things and then bring them to the fight on Megmas Day. If we are to stand against the higher-ups, we must use all of our talents. Our lives will depend on it."

"How will we communicate?" asked Nimble.

"As you know, there is a method of networking one Keplerian to another."

"That is something only the soldiers know how to do," said Bumble.

"Yes," said Chip. "And I am part soldier. If you come up to me, one by one, we can touch communicative plates. I will open up a channel, and you can join it. Then you will be able to sense my vibration, wherever you are, and I will be able to sense yours. That is how we will send and receive information."

"Won't that be dangerous for you?" asked Nimble. "There are so many of us. Part of you is a soldier, yes, but only part. What you mostly are is one of us. Has a Triangle ever been the primary hub in a communicative network before? How will your anatomy withstand so many connections?"

"It will have to," said Chip. "For the good of the bipeds — for the good of us all — it will have to. There is no other way."

And so, one by one, the Triangles went up to Chip and touched their communicative plates to his. The first one in line was Bramble.

"You are right," he said, grimly. "Love has nothing to do with choice. Nothing at all." And with that, all his peripheral shapes slammed against the side of his body that was touching Chip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to MissyTheLeast for catching a typo. 
> 
> My access to Internet is limited this week, because I'm traveling. Please leave feedback anyway! I'll write you when I get back.


	31. The Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: In chapter 29, I originally stated that the Heptagon orbiting John and Sherlock's box was a judge. She's not. She's a prosecutor. _Allons-y_!

From the confines of their small box, Sherlock and John stared at Plum Duff, aka John's ex-hostage, aka the witness for the prosecution.

"Right," said John. His shoulders were already square, but he squared them further. "We are so deeply, _deeply_ screwed."

"Perhaps not," replied Sherlock. "There's some chance of a mistrial."

"How much chance?"

"Turn around and look up."

Sherlock pointed at a long, rectangular window high above their heads. Framed by the clear jelly were six creatures: a Square, a Pentagon, a Hexagon, a Heptagon, an Octagon, and a Nonagon.

"Fizz said that we would be judged by the Council of Seven," said Sherlock.

"Somebody's missing," said John. "Who?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Ideally, a Decagon," he said. "Somebody with that many sides to their crowning polygon would be important enough that a conviction in their absence would represent a miscarriage of justice."

John's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Ideally? Sherlock, you never say 'ideally.'" He stuck out his hand in a sort of phantom handshake. "Hello, Ideally, I don't think we've met. Any news from Realistically? Where's he keeping himself?"

Caught out, Sherlock began to do what can only be described as pacing in place. 

"Oh, blast it, John. The missing council member is a Triangle. I'm 98.3 percent sure of it. It's been chosen to give the appearance of inclusion, not to exercise real power. That's why the rest of the Council are reacting to its disappearance with a blaze of insouciance. There isn't going to be any mistrial on behalf of a missing Triangle." Sherlock poked at the floor with a few abashed toes. "I was letting statistical probability fall by the wayside in an attempt to make you feel better."

"Noted," said John. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," said Sherlock, gloomily. "No, really: don't."

A few moments passed. Plum Duff greeted the Council and the gallery.

"So," said John. "Not a single Triangle in the courtroom today. Where do you suppose they all are?"

"Raising that army you talked about," said Sherlock, perking up a bit.

"Not making kebabs?" asked John. He hoped that Chip and other rebellious Keplerians hadn't been rounded up and chucked out the airlock.

"The two options are not mutually exclusive," observed Sherlock.

The prosecutor began to examine Plum Duff.

"Tell the Council and the gallery how you first encountered the animal known as Plum Cross," she said, pointing a grim and quivering tentacle at Sherlock.

"I was Principal Xenobiologist in charge of bipeds," said the witness. "He was one of my test subjects."

"I think you mean 'it,'" said the prosecutor.

"I mean 'he,'" said Duff.

Sherlock blinked.

"What?" asked John.

"Duff is doing something odd," Sherlock said. "It's too early to say what."

"Who were you working for?" asked the prosecutor.

"I was working for Scar, the former Head of Xenobiology."

"An illustrious scientist," said the prosecutor. "She was killed by Silver Circle, was she not?"

"Yes," said Duff.

"Esteemed members of the court: I put it to you that this was the act of a depraved animal," said the prosecutor. She addressed the Council, then rotated so that her words could be seen by the gallery.

"Actually," said Duff, "it was something else entirely."

"I beg your pardon?" asked the prosecutor.

"It was a thinking entity's last-ditch attempt to save his mate from certain murder," said Duff. "And as such, it was protected by Keplerian law."

A wave of polygonal astonishment swept though the gallery.

"Good God," said Sherlock.

"What?" asked the linguistically challenged John. "What's he saying?"

"He says that Scar was trying to murder me, and you lawfully intervened."

"Does he?" asked John. It was his turn to blink with surprise. "Good for him!"

"Do not get ahead of yourself," warned the prosecutor. The only thing stopping her from blinking too was a congenital lack of eyelids. "To call Scar's murder acceptable is to misinterpret the facts. Contain yourself, or I will ask the Council to hold you in contempt. What sort of work did you perform on Plum Cross?"

"I tried to obtain genetic material from him." Duff hesitated. "I ... I regret to say that my methods were invasive and coercive. Although this was in keeping with department policy at the time, the fault rests with me."

From the gallery, Fizz, the officer Plum Duff loved, looked on in rapt attention. The rest of the courtroom was in an uproar. In the gallery, one of the Squares fainted. Those closest to him began edging away so as not to stand in the resulting puddle.

"All right," said Sherlock. " _That's_ a new one."

"What now?" asked John.

"He's criticizing himself for trying to extract DNA from us against our will."

"Jesus," said John. "He's gone rogue. He's completely lost the plot. Why hasn't the prosecutor ditched him already?"

"Because he's all the prosecutor's got," said Sherlock. "If she had any other witnesses lined up, she'd use them, but she doesn't. All her eggs are in one basket, and that basket is half-cracked and in danger of losing a handle. Now be quiet and let me concentrate."

"Gallery, be still," ordered one of the council members. It was the Nonagon. Because her communicative polygons were so large, she had to speak slowly, in bursts of no more than three words at a time.

"Yes," said the Octagon council member. "Everyone, control yourselves. Otherwise, expect consequences. Prosecutor, continue."

"Thank you," said the prosecutor. She was a bit wobbly from stress. "Witness, stick to the facts. Explain why you were trying to get genetic material from Plum Cross."

Recognizing his partner's name, John stared hard at the prosecutor.

"For those of you who are not scientists," said the witness, "the purpose of the Xenobiology Department is to create a repository of life from around the galaxy, with a focus on entities who are likely to go extinct. In fact, that is the purpose of the entire ship. We search for life that is likely to die out, and we collect it."

"Then despite any individual failings you may have," said the prosecutor, "your mission was a moral one. How did you determine that the Plum Cross's species was at risk of extinction?"

"We did not determine it ourselves. The office of the Dodecagon …"

"Our Noble Leader," interjected the prosecutor. In response, half of the members of the gallery slapped their approving tentacles on the ground.

"The office of the Dodecagon determines which species are likely to go extinct," continued Plum Duff.

"Did you obtain the genetic material from the subject on your first try?" asked the prosecutor.

"No," said Plum Duff. "Nor on any of the six tries that followed. Plum Cross was not able to perform under laboratory conditions. He suggested that we bring him a mate."

"And did you?"

"Yes. The office of the Dodecagon ordered Procurement to obtain another biped for breeding purposes. Procurement then transported Silver Circle to the ship."

"For those not familiar with this animal," said the prosecutor, "where is Silver Circle?"

Plum Duff pointed at John. "There," he said.

John opened his mouth. Sherlock held out his hand palm down in a request for silence. John closed his mouth again.

"Did Silver Circle agree to the breeding process?" asked the prosecutor.

"As you can see," said Duff, "he has no communicative plate. It is not possible for him to speak Keplerian as we speak it."

"That is immaterial," said the prosecutor. "Did Silver Circle agree to the breeding process?"

Plum Duff hesitated. "He used gestures to place a cross inside a circle. His zookeeper, Umber Triangle, took that as assent."

"What else would it be?" demanded the prosecutor. "In this context, a cross inside a circle is an indication of willingness to mate."

"In retrospect," said Plum Duff, "I believe that Silver Circle did not know what he was saying."

"If he did not know what he was saying," countered the prosecutor, "he should have remained silent. That is the Keplerian Way."

Several members of the gallery glowed brightly at this.

"What's going on?" asked John.

"Nothing good," said Sherlock. "Plum Duff is speaking on our behalf, but the prosecutor keeps appealing to the gallery's sense of patriotism in order to cast doubt on our motivations. At the moment, she holds them in the palm of her tentacular hand."

John shook his head. "I still can't believe Duff is on our side."

"He's Keplerian," said Sherlock. "He's going to say whatever he believes to be the truth. The prosecutor would never have picked him as the star witness if she knew that he was going to support us, and I'm sure she vetted him carefully. In between the vetting process and now, something must have changed Duff's mind."

* * *

Meanwhile, a Triangle was trying to enter the courtroom. Her jelly shook with indignation and excitement. It was Grumble.

"Let me in!" she cried. "I bear news of revolution."

"What?" said one of the two soldiers who were guarding the entrance. "Can you read this one's puny font?"

"No," said the other soldier, his peripheral shapes recoiling in disgust. "Who has time to make out the mumblings of a Triangle?"

"And a tardy one at that," said the first soldier. "Tell me, Plum Hexagon, what did you think of the Tentacle Sphere finals?"

"One whole team down a hole," said the second soldier. "Next time, I am betting on the fire snakes."

"Listen to me," cried Grumble. "My castemates want to prevent the execution of the bipeds. They will stop at nothing! You will all be murdered in your beds!"

"Stop talking to your betters," said the first soldier. "You are nothing but hysteria and fine print. If you want to join the gallery, be here promptly next time."

"In any case," said the second soldier, "why are you not working on Megmas jam crumbles? Back to the kitchen with you."

"Yes," said the first one. "Squidge off, or we will make you wish you had. Honestly! Triangles are very disobedient these days. What is this ship coming to?"

"I have no idea," said the second soldier. "Oi! Go on, you stiff-jellied witch!"

* * *

"What's all that?" asked John, cocking his head towards the entrance to the courtroom.

"A Triangle. She was trying to barge in. They're bundling her off now."

"Did you see what she was talking about?"

"No," said Sherlock. "She was too far away, and her font was too small."

"Seems ominous," said John. "The barging, I mean. Also the bundling."

"She's in less trouble than we are," said Sherlock. "Let me focus."

The prosecutor continued examining the witness.

"Were you successful in breeding the animals?" she asked. "Did they produce offspring?"

"No," said Plum Duff.

"And yet, the Xenobiology Department successfully bred two other bipeds from this very species, correct?"

"Yes."

"Why did Silver Circle and Plum Cross not reproduce?"

"While some species can reproduce by mating with others of their own sex, it appears that this is not true for these bipeds. They cannot create offspring together without the use of science."

"Is it likely that these two animals were aware that they could not naturally procreate?"

Plum Duff hesitated. "Yes."

"Did either of the animals request another mate?"

"No," admitted Duff.

"Esteemed members of the Council, jellies of the gallery: mark this. The animals knew full well that they could not procreate. And yet Silver Circle did not ask for any mate other than the one we chose for him."

"The partner that the Dodecagon chose for him," Plum Duff shot back. "Surely you are not disputing the wisdom of the Dodecagon?"

"Of course not," said the flustered prosecutor, flapping her tentacles. "But the animals have free will. They promised to mate, and then they did not. They lied. And I rejoice that ours is a society that still sentences those who tell untruths to death."

"Death," murmured members of the gallery. In some cases, their peripheral shapes spun clockwise with satisfaction. In other cases, they spun counterclockwise in horror.

"This is ridiculous," said Duff. "Look at them. They are absolutely mates. Why else would we be having one trial for two entities? It is clear to everyone who has met them …"

"We are having one trial for two entities because they are _animals_ ," snapped the prosecutor. "They do not deserve two trials. They are not worth the time."

"If they are animals," returned Duff, "then they do not know right from wrong, and this trial is a farce."

"If it is a farce, it is because you are making it one!" shouted the prosecutor. "I dismiss you as witness. I will witness for the prosecution myself."

The gallery, which had been rife with muttering for some time, fell silent. Everyone's attention turned to the rectangular window. Behind it, the Nonagon council member drew herself to her full height.

"You will not," she said. "Scientist, proceed."

The prosecutor turned purple with anger and disappointment.

"Thank you," said Duff, with some relief. "You will not regret it, my Lady."

"I hope not," she said.

"Keplerians of the court," said Duff. "I have here a video that will exonerate these two bipeds of both the charge of murder and the charge of failing to become mates."

And with that, he began showing a video on his gelatinous middle. Focusing all his biofluorescence into a beam, he then projected the video onto the wall opposite the Council. The assembled Keplerians craned their whole bodies in order to see.

"Merciful Meg," said John. "That's you."

And it was. It was Sherlock, concussed and bound to a window, while Scar ran a slick, probing tentacle over his cornea. The man in the video spoke for a moment, then was whipped into near-unconsciousness.

John had a wide range of profanity at his disposal, but none of it seemed sufficient.

"That complete …! That utter …! That absolute …!"

"I know," said Sherlock, and he gave John a little squeeze in thanks.

"What did you say back there?" asked John, once he had stopped hyperventilating with fury. "You know, just before she whipped you."

"I called you my mate," said Sherlock. "That set her off. Mating was a sore subject for her, and intercaste mating in particular. Look at that scar. Where did she get it? The mark is tentacular in shape: another Keplerian. There was a fight, and jelly was spilt. What caused the fight? Love is a particularly vicious motivator."

"Meaning?"

"She had feelings for someone else, and the feelings were not returned. She responded by forcibly trying to mate with her target. That's why mating was a sore subject."

"Love, my arse," said John. "That's not love. That's something else. That's being a right shit."

"Fair enough," said Sherlock. "Oh, and we know this about her target: it was someone from another caste."

"Hang on. How do we know it wasn't another scientist?"

"Like humans, Keplerians tend to act in accordance with their defaults. This is especially true in times of crisis. Faced with an attack, the average scientist would have tried to reason with her. This Keplerian fought back."

"A soldier," said John.

"Yes."

"Like us," said John. "A soldier and a scientist. No wonder she couldn't stand us."

"She wasn't keen on Ut and Oh, either," said Sherlock. "As far as she was concerned, they were living out her fantasy. She'd tried to achieve intercaste mating herself, and ended up killing her target in the process."

"So that's why she was busy policing intercaste relationships."

"Exactly. It wasn't part of her job. It's not part of any scientist's job. It's something the soldiers do. And yet, there she was, torturing me for having a part in Ut and Oh's bonding ceremony. That in itself tells us oceans about her character and her motivations."

Video footage continued to make its way across the wall. The assembled Keplerians watched as video Sherlock disavowed John in the hopes that John would be sent back to Earth.

"They are mates," murmured one of the Squares. "There is no doubt of it."

John turned to Sherlock. "How do you know Scar didn't actually … ah. Right. When we met her, there were no hexagons in her body."

"Correct," said Sherlock.

"What makes you think she killed the soldier?"

"Shot in the dark," said Sherlock. "Good one, though. Think about it, John. After the attack, her higher-ups put her work environment under extensive, multi-angle video surveillance, but they didn't put her in jail, and they didn't toss her out the airlock. Why was she free?"

Light dawned on Kandahar.

"Because the victim's death allowed her to claim self-defense," said John. "He was no longer around to testify to the contrary."

"You're on fire," said Sherlock. "Really, John, you're nowhere near as illogical as you were when I met you."

"Thank you," said John. "I think. I don't know; I may be getting more so. How could Scar attack someone and then claim self-defense? Keplerians can't lie."

"She didn't view it as a lie. She felt that the soldier lured her in, seduced her with his charms, then wouldn't bond with her. From her point of view, he deserved to die."

John closed his eyes and pinched the inner corners. "This. This is what a sociopath looks like. Do you understand why I keep telling you you're not a sociopath? You're better than this."

"Possibly," said Sherlock.

"Definitely," said John.

They continued to watch the footage. They saw Dr. Jabby try to knock John out. They saw Dr. Pointy go after John with a scalpel. They saw a third scientist look John over and squidge for the door, unharmed.

"Notice," said Duff, "that Silver Circle did not salt any of these scientists dead, although he had that power. Instead, he rendered two of them unconscious, and he let the other one go. Similarly, he took me hostage just long enough to get to the Xenobiology lab, then gave me my freedom."

"Why?" asked the soldier on the Council of Seven. "This is not how you run a war."

"He was not trying to run a war," said Duff. "He was only trying to get to his mate. Tell me, what would you do to protect someone you love?"

"I would burn down seven villages and think nothing of it," said the soldier.

Plum Crumble, Plum Tart, and Plum Fool — Duff's old colleagues — observed this from the gallery.

"He has gone mad," said Crumble, "but I will give him this: Silver Circle and Plum Cross are not casual acquaintances. Taking hostages? Killing a would-be murderer? Those are the acts of somebody protecting a mate."

"I would do the same," said Plum Tart, for she was unusually fierce for a scientist.

Plum Fool blushed deep purple, then wrapped a discreet and affectionate tentacle around her.

"ENOUGH," said the Nonagon. "Where?"

Plum Duff was confused. "Where what, my Lady?" he asked.

"Did you get," said the Nonagon, firmly.

John shot Sherlock a questioning look.

"She wants to know where he got the video," said Sherlock. "Shhh."

"I _am_ shhhing," said John.

Plum Duff's peripheral shapes froze. He turned towards Fizz, as if seeking back-up. Then he stood up tall and turned to the Council. Three olive diamonds appeared in his middle.

"He doesn't know where he got the video?" said John. "What the fuck! How does he not know?"

"He does know," said Sherlock, whirling to face him head-on. "He's lying. John. Our Keplerian witness just lied."

And with that, a beam of light shot out of the ceiling, and John disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Ariane DeVere for her brilliant and insightful beta work. You're a gem, Ari. 
> 
> It's impossible to think of this weekend's shootings in Orlando and not feel overwhelmed with grief and compassion for the victims and their families. Nothing will erase this terrible tragedy, but we can help by speaking out against homophobia, giving blood, and/or donating money. (The Equality Florida donation page on GoFundMe is a good place to contribute.) This is a beautiful fandom, and together, we will make a difference.
> 
> Because I wanted to write a personal essay in response to the killings, and I needed somewhere to post it, I've just started a tumblr. It's at [mirithgriffin.tumblr.com](http://mirithgriffin.tumblr.com). If you have the time and inclination, please stop by. Thanks.


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